Blood Moon
by Darkfire Galaxy
Summary: This is my first multi-chapter Wolfblood fanfic so far. The last time I tried to do one of these, the website wouldn't let me so I hope it goes well. A rare blood moon is coming up for the Wolfbloods and Stoneybridge's humans are in serious trouble. Tom and Shannon must save everyone without telling anyone. And there are other forces at work.
1. Prologue

Wolfblood

Blood Moon

Prologue

20 Hours until Dawn

Maddy Smith sat on the edge of her bed, tears running down her face. Her boyfriend, Rhydian Morris, sat beside her. But this time, the arm that rested on her shoulders did nothing for her. The grip that this time was slightly too tight offered none of its usual comfort.

It was only as she felt the discontent inside her build that she noticed a smell that seemed to calm her slightly. But this time, it wasn't Rhydian's familiar and warming scent. This was cold and metallic. This was the ice that wanted to extinguish the fire. She looked down to see red liquid running out of small holes between her thumb and forefinger. She'd bitten into her own hand without even realising she'd done it. As Rhydian's grip tightened in concern, she had no words to comfort him. Instead, she said the one thing that was on her mind.

"This will be a night like no other."

 **Author's Note: This is the prologue to my multi-chapter Wolfblood story as promised. The rest will be up once I finish the Honesty trilogy I'm working on. I've finished the second one for that, so it should be up either tomorrow or the day after. Now it's just a matter of juggling the final one and Uni. It will be done soon though. (I hope.)**


	2. Chapter 1: Questions

Chapter 1

20 Hours until Dawn

"And has anyone seen Maddy and Rhydian?" Jefferies asked; his pen poised over Maddy's name on the register. Shannon and Tom exchanged a glance. They knew Jefferies was talking to them when he said 'anyone', but they had no clue. If anything, they hadn't heard much from Maddy and Rhydian in a while. They'd basically been blanking them at every opportunity, and it was making them feel very isolated. Shannon could only hope that they weren't cutting them out of something important like they promised they'd never do.

"We've barely spoken to them in weeks, sir." Tom shrugged

"I could try calling them if you want, sir." Shannon suggested, hoping against hope they picked up and didn't reject her call.

"What's this? Goody two-shoes Shannon Kelly is breaking the rules?" Kay jabbed, only to be shut down by a murderous glare from Tom.

"Normally I wouldn't let you, but since Maddy's got a photography presentation worth fifty percent of her BTEC today I suppose we can bend the rules." Jefferies winked at her in a way that told her that his decision could cost him his job. "Go to the darkroom and do it. I don't want the head walking in with you on the phone." Shannon left the room and headed towards the stairs up to the floor with the darkroom, praying that Jefferies' academic concerns were the biggest ones they needed to have.

Without anything better to do, Tom shrugged and sat down next to Jimi. Sam sat to Jimi's left while Liam sat behind him. Tom had noticed Liam seemed to have dropped to the bottom of the unwritten pecking order after the fiasco about him accusing Maddy's family of being werewolves.

"For what it's worth, I hope it's nothing serious, mate." Jimi said, turning to him.

"Why?" Tom asked grumpily. "You never liked them."

"That's true." Jimi shrugged. "Still, they're good people. I remember when we tried to cheat on that English test. I bailed out on you when I was keeping watch. It was Rhydian who got you out and he didn't even ask any questions. You couldn't have picked a better bunch. Look at us. There's a cheater with a neglectful father, a petty thief and a lunatic who thinks werewolves exist."

"Hey, I had a concussion after getting trapped in that mine shaft." Liam protested.

"Okay, I suppose that's fair enough." Jimi reasoned. "But then you shouldn't even have been back at school. And you nearly got us killed twice over your little wild goose chase. The fact that you had concussion can only get you so much leeway. Can you imagine the charges my dad would have pressed if he found out? He'd probably have you up for reckless endangerment for one thing, as well as a whole host of other charges."

"I thought you said he was neglectful?" Tom had to drop his voice to a whisper as Jefferies started reading out the notices.

"He would only do it for the money." Jimi replied. "He wouldn't do it because he cared about me." Tom nodded in understanding and decided to leave the issue alone.

Meanwhile, Shannon had reached the darkroom and taken her phone out of her bag. Quickly, she found Maddy on her contacts list and rang her.

" _What_?" Maddy's voice was clearly stressed.

"Where the hell are you?" Shannon asked, grateful that she'd even picked up.

" _Okay Shan, you need to tell the school that we've had a family tragedy and we can't make it. Just say that Rhydian's here supporting me too_."

"Do you want to shock me with the truth now?" Shannon asked bluntly. She was having none of it. First they didn't speak to her for weeks and now they wanted favours. She wasn't doing anything for them without a really good reason.

" _Look Shan, I'm sorry we haven't spoken, but this is important_!" Shannon heard Maddy briefly drop the phone. There was a horrendous growl and some scratching sounds before she picked it up again.

"Maddy, what the hell is happening?" Shannon asked. There was a long pause before Maddy picked up again.

" _Shan, I'm sorry_." Maddy gasped. " _Look, you need to stay away from my house tonight. And_ definitely _don't go near the den. It won't be like last time where you fell in and were fine. We won't be in control tonight_."

"What are you talking about?" Shannon asked.

" _Go on Google and search for 'Blood Moon' when you get the chance_. _It'll tell you everything if you can fill in the blanks_." Maddy replied before suddenly hanging up.

"If I have to fill in any blanks, then that's not telling me everything." Shannon muttered furiously as she sat down and brought up Google on her phone. She typed in 'blood moon' and hit 'Search'. What she saw turned her blood to ice. Without wasting a second, she got up and made it back to the classroom just as Jefferies was sending everyone off to their lessons.

"Ah, Shannon; what's the news on Maddy and Rhydian?"

"Maddy's had a family tragedy, sir." Shannon lied. "Rhydian's gone round hers to support her."

"That's a pity." Jefferies muttered. "We'll have to reschedule her presentation. Can you tell Rhydian that the proper procedure when he has to go and support someone is to have the parent or carers in charge of him ring the school up?"

"I'll tell him next time I see him, sir." Shannon nodded.

"Right, well off you go then." Jefferies returned to the paperwork in front of him. "You're late enough as it is, and you have science next. That's your favourite subject, isn't it?"

"It's joint first with Maths, sir." Shannon replied.

"Well, you'd best go then." Jefferies reached over and pulled another document from the mountain at the side of his desk. Shannon backed out of the history room and made her way quickly to science. As everyone sat down, she quickly opened Google again and reopened the page she was on before. She hit the first link, desperate to understand what she was learning about.

"Wow, they should really stop letting absolutely everyone edit Wikipedia." Shannon muttered as it told her that its blood red colour was a result of the moon being in alignment with ginger haired school nerds. She closed that page down and opened a proper science link.

' _The Blood Moon is recorded to take place commonly, but once every five-hundred years it is especially prominent. Its bright red colour is caused by the moon being in alignment and close proximity with Mars, the red face of which reflects off the moon and is illuminated by the remnants of sunlight radiating from the side of the Earth that is experiencing day. This unusual combination of energies is said to drive any member of the canine family insane. Domestic dogs have been recorded to exhibit increased aggression while wild species such as the grey wolf have been recorded to be seen being ten times more aggressive. On this particular blood moon, more wolf hunters were killed than ever before and pack territory wars turned into fights to the death. On the last recorded of these blood moons, howling was heard in the basements of homes, prompting a flurry of rumours about lycanthropes and other-_ '

"That's the wrong battery, Shannon. Stick to that one in front of you." Miss Parish said as the phone was snatched from Shannon's hand. "You can have this one back after the lesson."

Shannon couldn't even focus through science. As Maddy had said, the blanks were filling in. Tonight, everything with canine DNA was going to go insane. Maddy and her family would wolf out like every other full moon, but it wouldn't be like it usually was. This time, they would become feral, snarling monsters with no control over their wolves. Shannon had no doubt that the Smiths would have readied the den for tonight, but what about Rhydian? Would they have taken measures for him as well? What kind of measures were they taking? How would he react to them?

"Shannon, you've gone pale." Miss Parish looked over from where she was trying to explain simple circuits to Katrina. "Are you okay?"

"I don't feel well, Miss." Shannon wasn't lying. The panic was creeping in and it was making her feel worryingly sick. Suddenly, someone grabbed her and hauled her out of the classroom. She was too weak to fight back as they basically dragged her down the corridor and threw her into the toilets. She ran into one of the cubicles and gulped in big breaths of air. Once the shaking had subsided, she managed to straighten up and walk outside. The person who'd just saved her was waiting patiently.

"Are you feeling better then?" she asked.

"Thanks, Kara." Shannon said breathlessly as she leaned against the wall and slid down it until she was sitting on the floor.

"What's wrong?" Kara asked.

"Maddy had a massive family loss and Rhydian's gone to support her." Shannon lied. "I just feel like I should be doing something too instead of sitting here in school."

"I know that feeling too well." Kara shrugged as she sat down next to Shannon. "My mum found out her sister died last week. She went into a breakdown and I could only watch."

"I'm sorry that happened." Shannon reached over and briefly hugged Kara. Kara returned it and then stood up.

"I'll tell Miss that you've gone to sit in the Darkroom for a bit to cool off. She might excuse you from the lesson and let me take you your stuff." Kara walked off leaving Shannon alone. The chilling thoughts were creeping back in. If Rhydian couldn't cope or the Smiths' countermeasures (whatever shape or form they came in) failed, what would happen to him? Also, what about other Wolfbloods in the area? What about Jana?

 **Author's Note: This is the first chapter to Blood Moon. Since the Honesty trilogy is finished, I'll start putting up more chapters as promised. Thanks for all the support on this story so far. To properly answer one of the questions I've been asked frequently, Blood Moon is set between season 2 and season 3. Apart from Maddy being there, it will be fully compatible with the actual canon of the show. The next chapter will be up soon, so I hope to see you all there.**


	3. Chapter 2: Problems

Chapter 2

19 Hours until Dawn

Maddy opened the door to the den, her breathing shaky as she stepped inside and sat down. Around her, Dan and Emma rushed around getting everything ready. Emma was holding the ladder steady while Dan was at the top of it fixing a steel cover over the coal hatch.

"What are you doing?" Maddy asked.

"We can't take the chance that we'll escape and hurt someone." Dan replied as he fixed the final bolt and climbed back down.

"So, what's so special about this blood moon that it has this effect on us?" Maddy asked curiously.

"Mars only comes this close to the earth once every five hundred years." Emma explained. Maddy could hear the tension in her voice. "For some reason, it supercharges the blood moon and will render our wolves feral until morning. No one knows why it has that effect; only that it does."

"Well, that's not helpful!" Maddy rolled her eyes.

"Whether it's helpful or not, Maddy, it's all we've got right now!" Emma snapped before composing herself. "Sorry, pet. I'm just not myself right now."

"We're all feeling it." Maddy shrugged, shaking Emma's outburst off. Just then, Rhydian came down into the den with some ham sandwiches. He sat next to Maddy and passed her the plate. Emma and Dan froze where they were. "What?" Maddy asked.

"We really didn't think this out." Emma muttered. "Rhydian, I'm so sorry, love."

"What's wrong?" Now Rhydian looked just as confused as Maddy.

"There's no easy way to say this..." Dan began.

"Say it." Maddy said abruptly.

"Rhydian can't stay here tonight." Emma blurted out. A look of shock crossed Rhydian's face. Maddy's was a mixture of horror and anger.

"On a blood moon like this, wolves have been known to kill those outside of their own families." Dan explained quickly. "We just don't want to hurt him and we don't want him hurting us. It's no use saying it's not going to happen either. We won't be in control."

"And you think six hours before moonrise is a good time to tell me this?" Rhydian couldn't believe it. He would never normally get angry with Maddy's parents, but the blood moon combined with this sudden revelation was standing them on thin ice. "If you'd thought to tell me earlier, I could have tried to make plans! I could have dug a burrow on the Moors to seal myself up in it for the night or something! What the hell am I going to do now? I can't exactly go back to Mrs Vaughan and tell her what's going on, can I?"

"I don't believe this is happening." Maddy muttered.

"Maddy, I..." Emma tried to speak, but Maddy cut her off.

"I can't believe you've done this!" Maddy raged. "I'd expect him to get this kind of mushroom treatment from anyone he's had to put up with so far, but not from you two!"

"What the hell is mushroom treatment?" Dan asked, rubbing his temples like he had a headache.

"You're basically giving him a load of crap and expecting him to just put up with it!" Maddy snapped. "You're acting like he can't think for himself so he won't mind anything you throw at him. People's lives could be on the line tonight!"

"If I'm not going to be here tonight, I need a new plan and fast!" Rhydian added. "Jana said she was going back to the wild pack and she left two days ago, but she took the keys to her caravan with her. The wild Wolfbloods are probably up the other end of the country by now. If I get in, how am I going to lock myself in after that and get out again if I manage it? Will we really become so dangerous that this needs to happen?"

"Rhydian, you'll only be dangerous if you get near anything at all that's a living organism." Dan said, trying and failing to reassure him. "Just stay away from all those and you'll be absolutely fine."

"That's like telling me to follow a map around a grassy field and avoid the grass!" Rhydian couldn't believe he'd gone from having everything sorted and prepared for the night to being neck-deep in red water with no lifeboat. He had six hours to find a solution, or innocent people could die.

Meanwhile, Shannon was in the darkroom on Google. Kara had brought her bag and phone as she'd predicted and Shannon had sent Tom a text telling him to meet her there. This blood moon had the potential to cause deaths in Stoneybridge if the Smiths' countermeasures failed. She and Tom needed to sit down and come up with a logical answer together. Should they go out and try and keep people safe, or should they just stay at home and know that they'd be safe even if the rest of the village died?

"What did you want me for?" Shannon jumped at the voice behind her. She turned round in her seat to see Tom standing behind her. Worry was just as plain on his face as it was on hers.

"We need to talk urgently." Shannon said as Tom pulled up a seat and joined her at the computer. "Have you ever heard of a blood moon?"

"Yeah, they happen when the planets all line up right." Tom shrugged.

"Well, that's a start at least." Shannon shrugged, trying not to laugh despite herself. "There's one happening tonight and it's a kind that only happens every five hundred years. Something about the proximity of Mars to the moon causes wolves to go insane and it apparently has the same effect on Wolfbloods. Maddy's family are preparing now, but I'm concerned."

"What are you concerned about?" Tom didn't get it. Shannon rolled her eyes before continuing again.

"Tom, if they go feral like regular wolves and the Smith's countermeasures fail, people could die. I honestly don't know if we should risk our necks and go out there to make sure no one gets hurt or if we should just stay indoors and know that we're both safe."

"Shan, why are we even talking about this?" Tom asked. "Of course we're going out there tonight. We're friends with every tame Wolfblood in Stoneybridge. If any of them were to kill someone, they'd never live it down. Don't even get me started on what the rest of the village would do to them. We can't let that happen. They've saved us a million times. We owe them everything. We can never repay that, but if we have to jump in front them while they're feral and hold them off to save someone from them then I'll gladly do that."

"You don't care about yourself?" Shannon asked.

"Of course I care about myself!" Tom protested. "That's why I'm about to make sure my health insurance is paid up so far. But I can't just stand by while my friends could hurt people."

"You're so right." Shannon muttered, feeling ashamed that she'd even doubted what they needed to do. "First things first though, we need to call Maddy and check how things are going. If everything's fine, all we need to do is keep watch over the coal hatch to make sure they don't get out." Tom nodded and Shannon picked up the phone. After a few rings, Maddy picked up.

" _Shan, why are you calling back_? _If you want, we'll meet up when everything's back to normal, but we need to focus on tonight now_." Maddy's voice sounded unusually frantic.

"Maddy, you don't sound right." Tom said as Shannon put the phone on speaker. "What's the problem?"

" _Apparently, wolves are only safe with each other if they're blood related. My parents waited until now to tell us that Rhydian can't stay with us for the blood moon. He's in deep with no cover and he's got no place to go on tonight of all nights!"_

"Okay, where is he now?" Shannon couldn't believe what she was hearing. Emma and Dan really hadn't thought things through.

" _I have no idea_." Maddy replied.

"Okay, we'll find him." Shannon hung up and turned to Tom. "Okay, problem number two: Do we sneak out of school to go and find Rhydian, or do we stay in school and find him afterwards?" Without even answering, Tom pulled his phone out and rang Rhydian.

" _Maddy, if you even try to apologise..._ "

"Hey, mate." Tom said, obviously catching him off guard. "Shannon and I just heard about what happened. Where are you now?"

" _I'm nearing the edge of the town_." Rhydian replied. " _My only hope is to make it out of here before moonrise_."

"Okay, get to the 'Welcome to Stoneybridge' sign and stay there until school ends. We'll come to you after that and try to work out the best plan from there." Tom heard the phone go dead and took that to mean 'Okay, Tom. I'll see you soon. Goodbye.'

"Well, that's that sorted." Shannon shrugged.

"Okay, so we'll meet him at the edge of the town after school. Before then, we'll need to come up with some decent ideas for stuff to do with him."

"We could shove him in the school kitchens." Shannon suggested. "He could eat all of tomorrow's food so we don't have to."

"We're trying to stop him from killing people, Shan. We're not trying to kill _him_ in the process." Tom reminded her.

"You have a point." Shannon muttered. "What about the sewers?"

"I'm sure Mrs Vaughan might ask questions when he comes back in the morning smelling like crap." Tom countered.

"I suppose so." Shannon thought for a moment. "My parents have a wine cellar." The answer came to her in a flash. "Do you still have that heavy-duty padlock that Jimi trapped Jana and I in the janitor's cupboard with?"

"Yeah, it's at home." Tom shrugged. "But what if he howls?"

"My parents are away for the rest of the week." Shannon told him. "I don't have neighbours that live close to me. No one will hear him. We'll just let him out at sun-up to get back to the Vaughans' place and get changed for school."

"You're a genius." Tom wanted to hug her right then. "Okay, so if you go and get Rhydian when school ends, I'll go and get the padlock."

"I'll head to my house with Rhydian and meet you there." Shannon nodded. At that moment, the bell rang. As Tom and Shannon left for their next lesson, their hearts were pounding. The quicker they could get out of school, the quicker they could put their plan into action, the quicker they could have absolute peace of mind that Rhydian was taken care of and wouldn't be killing anyone.

 **Author's Note: So, this is the second chapter. I'm currently working on Chapter 5 by this point. As always, please remember to review. I'll post the next chapter as soon as possible but it's difficult juggling this and University. I'm also working on my Wolfblood Christmas story for the year, so that's coming soon as well.**


	4. Chapter 3: Safety

Chapter 3

16 Hours until Dawn

Rhydian paced impatiently by the 'Welcome to Stoneybridge' sign that he'd been instructed to wait by. Tom and Shannon needed to have a fool-proof plan. He was half tempted to kill them as soon as they arrived for making him wait. Just as the thought occurred to him for the twentieth time, he saw a flash of red hair as Shannon ran round the corner and greeted him.

"Sorry I kept you waiting. Are you ready?" she called over.

"This had better be good." Rhydian called back as he crossed the road that separated them and joined her.

"Okay, we have a sure-fire way to keep you and everyone else safe tonight." Shannon told him. "We're going to head to my house and lock you in the wine cellar. The door is practically bomb-proof, meaning that nothing is getting in or out tonight. Just to be safe, Tom's gone to get the heavy-duty padlock that Jimi locked Jana and I in the caretaker's storage room with. I have a door chain on the door for added security. We'll padlock you in to be doubly sure."

"And there's no one around to hear me when I start howling?" Rhydian asked.

"My house is just as secluded as Maddy's if not more so." Shannon replied. "Tom and I will be the only ones here. We'll make sure you can't get out." Rhydian and Shannon started walking with Shannon taking the lead slightly to make sure he didn't take a wrong turn.

"Thanks, Shan." Rhydian wanted to smile, but he just couldn't. "I really don't like having to ask this of you. What about your parents tonight?"

"They're away for the rest of the week." Shannon told him. "We won't have to worry about them tonight."

"Okay, this sounds perfect." Rhydian said. "Thank god I only have to worry about this once. The next one isn't for five-hundred years."

"Yeah, I found that out." Shannon grinned. "Actually, I was thinking we should all write a book for future generations of Wolfbloods as well as any humans that might find out. We could keep it in the Smiths' den library and basically have it as a self-help guide for future blood moons."

"That's not a bad idea." Rhydian shrugged. "We'll have to put it to Emma and Daniel when we're all human again."

"Take a left here." Shannon said abruptly, grabbing his arm and turning him in the direction he needed to go, to stop him from going straight on at the lights. "It's not far now."

They reached Shannon's house to see Tom already standing outside with the padlock.

"How did you get here so fast?" Shannon asked.

"What took you so long?" Tom replied. "Seriously though, I took a shortcut through the fields."

"Okay, were all here. Can we get on with this please?" Rhydian was clearly getting restless.

"Come on." Shannon unlocked the door and led him inside. She guided everyone down below into the wine cellar. "This is where you'll spend the night." She unlocked the door and showed him the massive room.

"Okay, this is pretty spacious." Rhydian nodded, walking around and getting familiar with the scents and atmosphere of the cellar.

"I'll put some chicken in the centre of the room and some water in the corner. If you need the loo, that's fine. Just know that it's you who's going to be cleaning it up in the morning. The cellar was emptied in 1958. My parents were going to store all sorts of family crap in here, but they haven't got around to it yet. Apart from the cask shelves, it's completely empty."

"Okay, so let me just run this through one more time." Rhydian said. "You're going to lock me in with the key and put a heavy-duty padlock on the door chain. Is there no form of beer hatch I might be able to escape through?"

"I'd be surprised if you could get through it." Shannon told him. "The fittings and mechanism were made of wrought iron. They've rusted to hell over the years and sealed themselves shut to the point that my dad's cutting torch can't get through it. Your wolf will stand no chance. Besides, there's no way you'll jump high enough to reach that." Shannon pointed up to a beer hatch mounted into the high ceiling.

"Right." Rhydian nodded. "No matter how pitiful or desperate my howling sounds in there, don't open the door. The chances are it'll be a trap. I'd rather have you both alive come tomorrow."

"Trust me; I'm not opening that door if there's even the slightest risk that something might rip my face off." Tom said in a way that made Rhydian unsure if he was serious or joking.

"Seriously, don't do it." Rhydian rolled his eyes. "By the way Shan, do you mind if I run round the fields until moonrise? I could literally run a marathon burning energy."

"Yeah, just don't get seen going too fast." Shannon nodded as she tapped her unlock code into her phone.

"What are you doing?" Rhydian asked.

"I'm just ringing Maddy to tell her everything's okay and that you've got a place for the night." Shannon told him. "I'm sure you don't want her worrying."

"No, it's probably best that she knows." Rhydian shrugged. "God, I'm buzzing right now. No one give me caffeine, whatever you do."

"I'll hide the Red Bull." Tom grinned. Rhydian raced out the house as Maddy answered her mobile.

"Maddy, it's Shannon. We've got Rhydian a secure place to transform tonight." Shannon told her.

" _Oh, thank god for that_." Shannon and Tom could hear Maddy relax on the other end of the phone. " _Where is he_?"

"He's at my house. He's going to be transforming in my wine cellar." Shannon filled her in on the plan and Maddy breathed a sigh of relief.

" _Okay, I'll let my parents know he's safe_." Shannon could hear Maddy pacing furiously.

"Why would they leave telling you something like that to the last minute anyway?" she asked.

" _How should I know_?" Maddy was still clearly livid. " _Sometimes I actually have to wonder what the world looks like from inside their tiny, pathetic minds_!"

"Look Maddy, I'm going to have to go now." Maddy's outburst had surprised Shannon somewhat. "I'll see you tomorrow. Have a decent time and try not to kill your parents, okay?" She hung up before Maddy had the chance to answer.

"I think it's pretty fair to say we shouldn't go round to see how they're doing." Tom rolled his eyes.

"Come on." Shannon motioned for him to follow. "Let's go cook Rhydian some dinner for when he gets in and put some meat in the cellar for wolf snacks."

"Okay, let's fire up the oven." Tom said. "You still have that gas oven, right?"

"No, we got an electric one." Shannon said. "The day before they left, my mum used up a whole box of matches trying to light it before she remembered."

"Why would she need matches?" Tom asked. "I thought she had that clicker thing."

"You mean that long-muzzled gas lighter?" Shannon replied. "Yeah, but she couldn't find it. She actually realised after she'd used all the matches that it was actually in the front of the apron she was wearing. She always kept it there."

"You've got to be kidding!" Tom was laughing so hard he couldn't stand up.

"I look at my parents and sometimes I wonder how I ended up such an academic." Shannon rolled her eyes.

"The correct term is nerd." Tom grinned.

"That's really more of a label." Shannon replied.

"Shan, you are what you are." Tom said. "We don't love you any less."

"Who said anything about anyone loving me?" Shannon looked confused. Tom gave a long pause, frantically trying to some up with something to say.

"How about we just go and start cooking?" he offered.

"I think that would be best." Shannon nodded. "And don't worry, I have a way to ensure Rhydian can't make us think he's in trouble to lure us in and kill us."

"Dare I even ask?" Tom's stomach sank as Shannon led him through to the kitchen. On the table sat a small yet heavy owl statue made she'd clearly handmade and painted herself. Tom recognised it immediately. "Shan, did you not learn your lesson when you put that in the den?" Tom couldn't believe it. He remembered all too well the trouble she'd got herself in when she'd hidden a camera in it to spy on the Smiths as they transformed.

"Relax, Tom. I'm not going to record him." Shannon double-checked the camera batteries before taking it and walking back to the wine cellar. "I set up a live link to my laptop, remember? We can monitor him on that and make sure he's not in any trouble."

"Okay, but if I catch you recording him, I will delete it when you're not looking." Tom called after her.

"Don't worry, I won't let you see." Shannon replied. An uncertain look crossed Tom's face. "I'm joking!" she called back.


	5. Chapter 4: Transformation

Chapter 4

12 Hours 30 Minutes until Dawn

 **Author's Note: WARNING! This chapter is where the horror starts and contains character death and blood. Discretion is advised for any of those of a nervous disposition or who have recently lost someone.**

Tom and Shannon sat on the sofa, trying to focus on the movie they were supposedly watching. Darkness was falling and Shannon had just texted Rhydian to call him back to the house. Suddenly, the front door burst open as Rhydian ran inside. He was clearly fighting the black veins that threatened to start the transformation.

"Is it time?" Shannon asked.

"I should have another half an hour, but this is different." Rhydian growled. "I can feel this bloodlust that's just impossible to stop. I think I might have to go in early and wait it out."

"Okay, well we've put your dinner in the cellar as well as the other wolf snacks, so if you want to go in now then we can lock you in." Shannon got up and kept her calm exterior, but she was terrified. This wouldn't be the Rhydian they knew tonight. "Come on, Tom. Bring the padlock." Tom ran and grabbed the padlock from the kitchen table. He joined them just as Shannon shut the door and turned the key.

"See you in the morning, mate." Tom called through the door as he padlocked the latch.

Over at the Smiths' house, Maddy and her family trooped down into the den as usual. They stood in a triangle, waiting for the moon to do its work.

"For the record, I'm still not happy with what you did to Rhydian." Maddy growled.

"Maddy, we can't argue about this now." Emma said. "If we're angry when we transform, we might hurt one another. I don't want that for us."

"Fine, but we'll have a _very_ long discussion about it in the morning." Maddy's tone suggested that this wasn't open to negotiation. Normally, Emma would have clamped down on her dictating to them, but she knew Maddy had every right to be angry. She decided to let this one slide. As they watched, the black veins spread down their arms and up their necks. Their fangs started to appear with twice the usual force of their transformations to the point that Maddy felt like her teeth were going to shatter. She looked up at her parents to see that their eyes had changed. But they weren't burning their usual gold. Maddy looked into her parents' eyes and saw blood red orbs of fiery death. She ran to the mirror that was in the corner. Her own irises had also turned a similar shade of blood red, yet a bit darker and even more horrific.

"What's happening?" she called over frantically.

"I've no idea, cub." Emma said. "Beyond this point, it's all new territory to me."

"God, I'm scared." Maddy admitted.

"Yeah, so are we." Dan shrugged. "There's not much we can do about the full moon though. We'll just have to take this as it comes." Maddy was just about to protest, but then she felt her jaw elongate. Her skeletal structure reformed as fur covered her body. Within seconds, three red-eyed wolves stood where the Smiths once did.

At that very moment, Tom and Shannon heard the first howl coming from the wine cellar. They knew Rhydian had transformed and that there was no way they could open the door until morning. Just then, a text came through from Tom's mum.

' **Tom, stay exactly where you are tonight. I don't care if you're at home or at Shannon's, just stay there.** ' Tom and Shannon exchanged a glance. Clearly something was wrong.

Over at the hospital, Tom's mum was rushed off her feet. She'd only just finished delivering a child when someone buzzed her.

" _Doctor Okanawe? You're needed down in Trauma. We've had someone brought in urgently_."

"How urgent is it?" she'd asked.

" _You could say it's pretty urgent. Someone was in the village when they were absolutely savaged_." Doctor Okanawe had made it as fast as she could. When she got down there, she was shocked beyond belief. She'd never seen so much blood pouring out of so many wounds on one person before. Immediately, she'd flown into action.

"Okay, I need a haemostat dressing ASAP, someone get an IV line in somewhere that's stable enough to take it and we seriously need to close up that throat wound so he can breathe properly!"

"Who even is this?" one of the other doctors asked. Just then, a nurse caught sight of the man's shredded arm when she tried to put the IV in and promptly had to grab a plastic bucket from under the bed to be sick into.

"His wallet ID says that he's Bernie from Bernie's Café. I remember taking my kids there for burgers!" someone else said.

"Bernie, I need you to listen very carefully." Doctor Okanawe told him. "I need to know what happened. All the detail you can."

"I just locked the shop up for the night." Bernie's words were an effort because of one doctor holding a dressing over his throat wound and Doctor Okanawe trying to keep him stable and trying to keep his chest cavity from filling up.

"Who did this to you?" she asked.

"Not who… What…" Bernie was struggling to breathe. "Red eyes… fur… wolf…" Just then, there was a slow, droning beep from off to the side. The heart monitor was flat-lining.

"Crap, this is not good!" Doctor Okanawe turned to the doctor holding the IV in place. "I need one shot of adrenaline! Get the defibrillators!"

"Defibrillators won't help!" another doctor called over. "I count ten broken ribs! We can't shock him with that much damage!"

"Adrenaline's out of the question!" a nurse reported. "Most of the injection sites are compromised and we can't roll him over to inject into any rear sites because of his ribs." Without a pause, Doctor Okanawe threw the bedsheet over Bernie's face.

"Well, that's it then. Time of death: 21:55 PM." One of the doctors swore and kicked a bedside table over. "Do I need to sedate you?" Okanawe snapped.

"Sorry, that won't happen again." Now that the brief anger fuelled adrenaline rush had worn off, the man looked utterly defeated.

"And as for you, nurse…" Okanawe rounded on the nurse who'd thrown up.

"I'm sorry, that was unprofessional." The nurse looked like she wanted the ground to open her up and swallow her.

"The same thing happened to me when I was a rookie." Doctor Okanawe told her. "In truth, he'd lost too much blood anyway. I don't have too much of a problem for now, but for god's sake sort it out for next time! I have a book on how to deal with it if you need it." Just then, a thought occurred to her. Whatever did this might still be out there. Quickly, she pulled out her phone and texted Tom.

' **Tom, stay exactly where you are tonight. I don't care if you're at home or at Shannon's, just stay there**.'

' **What's wrong**?'

' **We've just had someone brought in after being attacked. We couldn't save him**.'

' **Was it anyone we know**?'

' **Do you know Bernie from the café**?'

' **Oh, god**!'

"What's wrong?" Shannon asked, seeing Tom's face.

"Bernie was just brought into Trauma at the hospital." Tom told her. "He was attacked. Mum couldn't save him."

"What?" Shannon couldn't believe it. Tom hugged her close as she burst into tears. Just then, they heard a ferocious snarl come from the cellar.

"Shan, I completely understand, but you need to pull yourself together." Tom told her. "You're agitating Rhydian."

"I loved his burgers." Shannon muttered tearfully.

"To be honest, Shan, I'm more concerned about what did it to him." Tom said as another text arrived. "Apparently he was saying something about wolves."

"You don't think…"

"I'm hoping I'm wrong." Tom suspected he was right though. What if the Smiths had escaped? What if someone captured or shot them? How would Rhydian react? How would they cope?

"Okay, we need to assess this calmly and rationally." Shannon said, composing herself. "The best case scenario is that wolves were his favourite animals and he adopted one through some charity and that's what he was concerned about."

"He hated any type of dog." Tom reminded her. "He always used to get bitten when he was younger. He keeps cats."

"Okay, the second best scenario is that this attack was done by multiple foxes that went insane because of the blood moon and smelled food in his café."

"That's possible." Tom muttered. "But the worst case is that either the Smiths have got loose somehow and one or more of them did this, or that a wild Wolfblood found its way to Stoneybridge."

"To be honest, I think I'd rather it was the wild Wolfblood." Shannon muttered.

"I know, right?" Tom agreed.

"Still, in situations where lives depend on it, we have to automatically assume the worst case scenario and act accordingly." Shannon said.

"How do we 'act accordingly'? We didn't put any contingencies in place for this!" Tom reminded her. "We didn't have time!"

"The best thing I can come up with right now is that we grab shovels from the tool shed at the back." Shannon shrugged. "We go out into the town, I'll keep my laptop with me to monitor Rhydian and then we deck anything that tries to eat us."

"Shannon, we can't just deck Maddy and her family over the head!" Tom protested. As if in agreement, they heard another growl from Rhydian in the cellar.

"Tom, it's for the greater good." Shannon gave him an honest look that told him she really didn't have a better plan.

"Okay, fine; just don't start quoting Hot Fuzz on me." Tom muttered irritably.

"I have a spare coat if you need to wrap up warmer." Shannon said. "It's only actually an old denim jacket, but it's from the era when they knew how to make them. It's really thick, so it should help keep the cold out."

"It's better than nothing." Tom shrugged. "My hoodie is only thin."

"Okay, I'll run and get that for you." Shannon got up and raced upstairs while Tom waited at the bottom. A second later, he saw a blue shape come hurtling out the darkness at him. He shrugged the jacket on just as Shannon came down. Tom noticed she'd swapped her school uniform for a simple yet warm outfit complete with thermal socks and a jacket that looked like it was built for arctic survival.

"That was a quick change." Tom observed.

"Tom, I was _not_ going beast hunting in a skirt." Shannon told him. "To be honest, I hate wearing the thing when we get this close to winter. You've got next to nothing to protect your legs."

"I never really thought about it." Tom shrugged. "I guess I never really had to. Can we go and find this Wolfblood now?"

"Okay, let's get our shoes on and go." Shannon pulled out the drawer from the shoe rack and found both pairs. "Let's just hope we can get there before anyone else dies. Shannon went to grab her laptop, but then had another idea. She pulled her phone from her pocket and started tapping at the screen.

"Now what are you doing?" Tom asked, exasperated.

"Why take a laptop when I have this?" Shannon asked. "Damn, I'm good. Okay, I've linked my phone to the camera in the cellar. I'll be able to monitor Rhydian and look at what I'm doing while keeping an eye on things around me. Plus, it saves me lugging that laptop around. It gets heavy after a while."

"Right. Since Bernie was attacked recently, he'd probably just locked the shop up, right?" Tom decided.

"That sounds reasonable." Shannon nodded. "So we should start at the shop and work towards his house for the crime scene. Once we find it, we'll get a better idea of which Wolfblood did this."

"Okay, but what do we look for?" Tom asked.

"We look for anything that can help us." Shannon shrugged. "We're looking for fur samples, paw prints, anything like that."

"Okay, then once we find that, I'll let you get your nerd on in telling which Wolfblood it was." Tom concluded.

"We'll be back in a bit, Rhydian." Shannon called down the stairs to the cellar. A mournful howl drifted back to them. Shannon checked her phone screen. Sure enough, Rhydian was stood at the side of the door, possibly waiting for them to check on him and open it to make sure he was alright.

"Is he okay?" Tom asked.

"He's fine." Shannon nodded. "He was doing exactly what he warned us about."

"Okay, I'm officially glad he knows himself so well." Tom grinned.

"Let's get moving." Shannon motioned for Tom to follow her out the door. They stepped into the cold night air together. They were unsure what awaited them in the town they once thought they knew so well, but it would probably have fur, fangs, a tendency to attack and kill on-sight and a general air of unpleasantness. Without even realising it had happened, Tom's hand found Shannon's and gripped it tight. Without even bothering to hide her nerves, Shannon gripped his hand in return.

 **Author's Note: Okay, so here's the next chapter. This is my first upload of 2017 and I'm sorry this chapter wasn't up sooner. With the arrival of Christmas and then preparing for the new year, we've been rushed off our feet a bit. I also wasn't able to work on my stories nearly as much as I'd have liked, but I'm looking at changing that very soon. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a happy 2017. Please feel free to review.**


	6. Chapter 5: Into the Night

Chapter 5

12 Hours until Dawn

The moon sat in the sky like an unwelcome eyesore. Behind it, Mars sat in close proximity, bouncing the light of the sun from the other side of Earth back at the dark side. The background light stained the moon's surface a blood red shade for anyone who looked into the sky. As Tom and Shannon ran through the Moors towards Stoneybridge, they couldn't help but look up at it with hatred. If it weren't for this happening, they would all be enjoying life as usual. They would probably be sitting on the sofa at Shannon's place watching movies before eventually falling asleep on said sofa. Maddy and Rhydian would be wolfing out in the den together, rather than Rhydian being forced to stay in Shannon's wine cellar. The blood moon had already claimed one victim. Even that was too many but if they could help it, he'd be the only one of the night.

"Shan, look." Tom stopped running and pointed to something that had been torn apart by an old farm fence, heavily guarded by trees and brambles.

"What is that?" Shannon wondered aloud as they inched closer. "Oh god, I hope that's not what I think it is." Suddenly, she broke into a run and grabbed her phone. She used the torch on it to light up the area. The wreckage of Jana's caravan sat there in plain view. The door was bent outwards and the sides had been torn at from the inside, but none of the holes were very big. The door had just about held too, keeping whatever had locked itself in secure. In the end, it was the window that had let the Wolfblood's plan down. After they'd locked themselves in and transformed, the window seemed to have offered no resistance.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Tom asked.

"I think one of the wilds came back here for security during the blood moon." Shannon muttered. "Her plan didn't work though. Obviously, she's either stronger as a wolf than she realised or the wolves gain additional strength coupled with going feral."

"And I presume by the way you said 'she' you already know who it was?" Tom knew who it was already, but Shannon's words just cemented everything in place.

"If there was any doubt, this would prove it." Shannon said, reaching into the broken window frame and pulling a bloodied tuft of red fur from the glass. "Jana's come back to Stoneybridge."

"We need to find her." Tom's eyes were wide in realisation. If someone found her and shot her, how would any of them live with themselves? Without another word, the teens ran in the direction they'd been heading before. All too soon, Bernie's café came into sight. They were confused at first because of the fact that neither of them could remember the door being painted red. They knew he'd always wanted a red door, but he'd never got round to it. That was when they realised the door wasn't painted. White patches still showed where the blood had run over time before drying and discolouring, the street light still making it look like the original red shade.

"What the hell are we looking at?" Shannon was struggling to take in the scene before her.

"I think it's Predator 2 Scene 2." Tom muttered. "I'm half expecting to see a body hung from the ceiling by their ankles."

"Wolves can't hang people, Tom." Shannon rolled her eyes.

"I know, but it's still pretty similar." Tom shrugged. Shannon was already looking over the ground for anything that might give them an idea as to what happened.

"Bingo!" she muttered.

"What have you found?" Tom asked. Shannon had been looking through the glass on the floor that was left when Bernie's head impacted with the door due to the wolf attacking him. She turned round and held up a bloodied tuft of red fur.

"You're saying that…"

"I'm sorry, Tom. It looks like it was Jana who killed Bernie." Shannon muttered. Just then, Tom heard a car coming. He grabbed Shannon's wrist and hauled her behind the corner of the building, rendering them invisible in the shadows. A beige pickup truck pulled to a stop and the driver got out. Tom and Shannon's blood turned to ice. As if on cue, someone got out from a following car with a camera and turned it on.

"Okay, the night vision is on and we are on in five, four, three, two…"

"Hello there, I'm Kyle Weathers and welcome to Beast Hunt. After our last hunt here was sabotaged by two youths, one of whom was delusional and belonged in a straight-jacket, I'm back here in Stoneybridge. It's just emerged on Google News' NHS page that a shop owner was killed here in front of his very own shop. We've come here to examine the scene. Be warned: this may get disturbing and it's very graphic."

"What's he doing here?" Shannon whispered.

"He's probably after the wolves again." Tom whispered back. "He might be hoping it was one of them that killed Bernie so that he has a reason to take them." Shannon's blood boiled at the thought. The nerve of him to make the straight-jacket comment…

"I'm not seeing any loose fur or anything incriminating…" Kyle mused as he patrolled around with an LED torch. As they watched, he drew ever closer to their position. Suddenly, his gaze snapped over to something leaving the crime scene. "There we go; I've found a blood trail." Kyle triumphantly pointed to a red set of paw prints leading away from the crime scene. "Steve, take my place in the driver's seat. Rick and I are going to follow this on foot and then you bring the car around when we call you, okay?" Steve nodded as he shuffled over into the driver's seat and got back to reading his Top Gear magazine.

"Kyle, are you sure about following these prints on foot?" Rick asked, scratching the back of his head and ruffling his jet black hair with worry.

"Trust me, this will kick-start your film career." Kyle told him as he went and grabbed his tranquilizer rifle from the back of the car.

"Fine, but I do want something to protect myself." Rick shrugged.

"You have something." Kyle said, reaching round and grabbing his torch from where he'd just hung it on his belt. "These things have a strobe function. If you time it right, that should immobilise it long enough for me to deal with it for you."

"That cold hearted…" Shannon couldn't believe it.

"He's insane." Tom muttered. "We need a plan. If he's got strobe torches, we can't take him head-on like last time."

"We've got to do something though." Shannon hissed as Kyle and Rick headed off in the direction of the paw prints. "If he finds Jana, he'll either sell her to a zoo or take her head and pelt as a trophy."

"You know we won't let that happen." Tom had a determined look on his face that told Shannon he meant it.

"And if it happens anyway?" she asked.

"When did you get so pessimistic?" Tom snapped. "Shan, we're going to save Jana. If we don't step up and protect one of our friends, what was the point of coming out here in the first place?"

"I know." Shannon nodded. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just scared."

"What is there to be scared of?" Tom couldn't believe it. "It's Jana, Shan. She's just a big softie on the inside."

"But it's not Jana, is it?" Shannon reminded him. "The Wolfbloods aren't themselves tonight. They're literally just the feral animals that the world would mistake them for any other day. She's killed one person tonight and nearly killed me a couple of months ago even before that."

"Well you shouldn't have lied to them, should you?" Tom couldn't believe he was hearing this now. "I don't care what Rhydian and Maddy say. There has to be a bit of her that's still the Wolfblood we know on the inside. The same goes for Maddy and her family. It's still them inside. If it wasn't, they'd just become snarling animals forever."

"I get that, Tom." Shannon said. "I think what they were trying to say is that it's still them in there. They just don't have any control this time. For them, it would probably be like watching a video of themselves doing these things. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you one-hundred percent. We need to do something. The main question is what we do and how we go about it. One wrong move and we're dog food."

"Okay, so what did you have in mind?" Tom asked.

"I think we need to raid Kyle's supplies and see if we can find some form of protection." Shannon replied. "We need something tough to protect our limbs and throats."

"Do you really think he'll have just left something like that lying around in there?" Tom asked, very much doubting Kyle would be careless enough.

"It's a longshot, but it's hopefully enough." Shannon shrugged. "We just need to knock out Steve for a long period of time though."

"Do you think he'll have a spare tranquiliser rifle or darts?" Tom suggested. "If we can get a dart, we can stab him in the arm with it and that level of sedative can easily put him down and keep him there."

"That's risky." Shannon replied. "The last thing we want is to dose him with too much and end up killing him. We don't want a dead body on our hands."

"Yeah, especially not one that size." Tom muttered. "Where would we hide him?"

"All we really need to do is stop him falling out from his seat." Shannon summarised. "That way, we can just make it look like he fell asleep instead of being knocked out. But the one thing we can't do is kill him. I know we've broken laws before, but there are things I know Maddy and Rhydian would never forgive us for when it comes to protecting them."

"The question is, how are we going to search Kyle's weapons stash without Steve noticing?" Tom looked over the line of cars. "I'm seeing Kyle's pickup truck that Steve's driving with all the spare equipment and that second car that the camera guy was in. Rick's car should be mostly empty, but the one we need to search is the one that has someone in it."

"Okay, but I can see him listening to music." Shannon observed. "We need to give the cars a wide berth and get a look at the other side to see if he has earphones in both ears or just the one."

"Okay, then we should cut around the back so there's less risk of getting spotted." Tom pointed to a thick patch of bushes. "We can sneak around using that as a starting point."

"Okay, that's good." Shannon muttered. "Since you're faster, you should sneak around. Flash me thumbs up or down as to whether or not we're okay to go."

"Hang on, why do I have to get put in the firing line?" Tom protested.

"Tom, it's not like he's got a gun." Shannon rolled her eyes. "You're wearing more dark clothes. It'll make you harder to see. Just keep a decent distance away from him but close enough that you can see."

"I'll play rock paper scissors for it." Tom said.

"You're terrible at that." Shannon reminded him.

"How can you be terrible at it?" Tom asked.

"You always pick paper." Shannon replied.

"Oh, do I?" Tom said indignantly, holding out his fist. Shannon rolled her eyes again, holding out her fist too. Instantly, Tom's hand flattened out into paper as Shannon's two fingers extended into scissors. "Do you want to go for two out of three?" Tom asked.

"Get going." Shannon said simply, pushing him slightly in the direction of the bushes. Muttering four-letter words under his breath, Tom circled round slowly and made it to the other side without getting spotted. He flashed Shannon the thumbs up and she joined him at the back of the truck. Using their hands to brace against the bottom of the rear flap and shield the noise of the hinges, they lowered it and started to rummage through, being very careful not to be seen in the rear view mirror or put any weight on the back to shake the truck.

"This stuff is a jackpot!" Tom whispered. "There are no tranquilisers in here, but what's this thing?" He held up a canister and Shannon cast her torch beam across it.

"It's an upgraded form of his bait." Shannon noted. "It has all the attractive properties of the old version but with a powerful anaesthetic to knock out anything that comes near it. It can be used on any animal since the animal's system will only accept enough of it to put them under for a set three hours."

"How do you know this from just looking at the tin?" Tom asked.

"I'm reading it from the label on the back." Shannon replied. "Apparently, it's literally like a gas grenade. Just pull the pin and throw."

"Then I think that's Steve out for the count." Tom grinned before crawling round to where Steve left the side window open. Steve barely had time to react as the grenade went off. As he took a deep breath in to hold his breath, the gas that made it into his lungs put him under. Tom raced back to Shannon and high-fived her.

"That was brilliant!" Shannon said, hugging him briefly. "The only question is; how do we get the canister out now so that it looks like he just fell asleep?" Tom grabbed a spare scarf from the back of the truck and wrapped it around his face. The stench of sweat on it made him want to retch, but it allowed him to reach in and grab the canister without breathing the gas in.

"What do we do with this?" he asked as he ripped the scarf off and flung it away. Shannon took it from him and stuffed it under Rick's car before turning to face Tom again.

"They never think to look under the car next to their own."

"Okay, we're all sorted then." Shannon muttered, pulling her coat tighter around her to keep the cold out. "Now let's go and find Jana before she hurts anyone else." With that, she grabbed two of Kyle's spare torches and a pair of his night vision binoculars. She also decided to put a gas grenade in her pocket too. If push came to shove, they could knock Jana out for long enough to get her trapped somewhere for the night.


	7. Chapter 6: Beast

Chapter 6

11 Hours 45 Minutes until Dawn

"Shan, how are we even going to hope to find Jana before he does if we're following the same blood trail?" Tom asked as they ran. Their lungs burned from the cold air that tortured them like shards of glass scraping through the tissue on contact every time they breathed it in.

"It's all we've got for now, Tom." Shannon replied. "I really don't have a better idea."

"Well that's comforting." Tom muttered sarcastically.

"Look, I can't work miracles all the time, okay?" Shannon snapped. "No one can."

"Yeah, but tonight is the night we really need to!" Tom countered. "People have died already, Shan. We can't let anyone else be hurt, human or Wolfblood."

"I get it, Tom." Shannon said as she ground to a stop. "I really want to stop any more deaths from happening too. The trouble is we can't even ask ourselves where Jana might go. It's not her that's in control here, it's the wolf. Rhydian knew that his wolf might try to bait us into the cellar and it did. The problem is that there's no telling what Jana's wolf might do and she can't warn us."

"Okay, so we should probably get to a high vantage point and use the night vision binoculars." Tom suggested. "With a lot of luck and a hefty portion of total guesswork, we might be able to spot her or some sort of clue that could help."

"The only thing is; there's nowhere that really overlooks enough of the town." Shannon shrugged.

"Wasn't there supposed to be a lighthouse somewhere near the beach?" Tom asked.

"How the hell would we see the town from there?" Shannon countered. "The beach is nowhere near Stoneybridge."

"You won't have to go quite that far." Shannon and Tom looked to their right. They were too late to counter as Kyle's boot slammed into Tom's side, sending him sprawling. Shannon went to reach for the gas grenade in her pocket, but was cut off as Kyle grabbed her by the hair and dragged her round in a circle before throwing her into something he'd been carrying with Rick's help. As the wooden panel came up and Kyle slid the crossbeam into place locking her in there, Shannon realised that it was actually the same wooden crate that he'd trapped Maddy and Rhydian in back when she'd been stupid enough to help him.

"Why are you doing this?" she screamed as Kyle through the box.

"Do you want the short list or the long?" Kyle snapped as he hauled Tom to his feet and quickly cable-tied his hands behind his back. "I must say, it was very clever how you killed Steve." Kyle turned his attention back to Tom. "I never thought you had it in you. It's just too bad that all my gas canisters are coated with a fine film layer that makes fingerprints glow under the light of our torches."

"I just put him to sleep!" Tom snapped.

"Oh, and you conveniently forgot that the stuff attracts anything with a predatory olfactory system even after the anaesthetic dissipates? I don't buy it!" Kyle kicked Tom behind the kneecaps, cutting his legs from under him. "But now, we're going to get a chance to get even. Since you also let the wolves go the first time and stole my first batch of the bait, you'll be replacing it. When we draw the wolf in, we'll lull it into a false sense of security and then let the anaesthetic do its work. She'll probably kill you before she drops off, but you'll be asleep anyway. For you, it'll be painless. Shannon on the other hand, will be watching every detail from the box."

"You're a monster!" Shannon spat.

"I'm not the one who used a gas grenade to kill an innocent man!" Kyle countered.

"He's just asleep though!" Shannon said desperately.

"The wolf came back for him, Shannon." Kyle landed a savage kick on the box and caused it to topple. Shannon put her full weight into tipping it back over onto its front. She managed it and landed with such force that she heard the bottom of the box splinter. "Maybe if your friend hadn't left the door open, he'd still be with us." Kyle dragged Tom a couple of meters towards the tree line and then threw him downwards so that his face hit the floor hard.

"Stop it!" Shannon screamed. Kyle pulled one of the bait grenades from his belt and threw it to Rick.

"Okay, just pull the pin and roll it by his head so I can get out of firing range before it goes off." Kyle instructed as Rick let his camera hang slightly in disbelief that he was actually holding a weapon that would be ending someone's life by his action.

"I have a better idea." Rick grinned maliciously.

"What? Is this too big a job for you?" Kyle rolled his eyes.

"I'm just wondering if we don't need a bigger bucket of bait." Rick shrugged.

"Who did you have in mind?" Kyle asked. The air crackled with an energy so strong it was the next best thing to visible. Kyle stood there with Tom squirming under his foot. The heel of Kyle's boot was digging into the small of Tom's back. Rick clipped the grenade to his belt as he hefted his camera onto his shoulder. With split-second timing, he swung it like a club. The strike was a hair's breadth away from smashing half of Kyle's skull in. Kyle just managed to drop back and whirl round, swinging out a kick that knocked Rick's camera off his shoulder and to the floor.

"I have to do something!" Shannon muttered to herself as Kyle began grappling with Rick and winning.

"What the hell is it with camera people?" Kyle hissed through his teeth. Kyle was definitely the stockier and stronger of the two. He was easily overpowering Rick. Shannon didn't have time to think. She pulled her bait grenade she stole from Kyle from her pocket before pulling the pin and pressing the release nozzle against the viewing window of the box. Blowing through the window also helped prevent any from doubling back on the breeze and knocking her out instead.

"If you're out there Jana, then now's the time." Shannon muttered.

"Do you remember the moment we met?" Kyle asked Rick as he threw him on the floor. "Do you remember how it could have gone and didn't? Well nothing's going to save you now!"

"I don't kill kids." Rick spat. With that, Kyle pulled another grenade from his belt. He smashed it into Rick's mouth with enough force to nearly dislocate the younger man's jaw.

"You were right, you know?" Kyle laughed as he pulled the pin. "We _did_ need a bigger piece of bait." At that moment, an eerie howl tore through the air. Panting could be heard as the wolf approached. Rick struggled and thrashed desperately as Kyle held him down with his boot just as he had done Tom. Tom wasn't getting up to help. Shannon must have realised that he'd exhausted himself fighting Kyle before.

Having not thought any further than pulling the pin on her grenade, Shannon watched with her heart in her mouth as a wolf stepped from the tree line. The gleam in her red coat was matched only by the hostility in her blood red eyes. Kyle had pulled his scarf up to shield himself from the gas, and he reached for his strobe torch just in case the wolf didn't fall asleep quick enough. He waited and watched as she prowled around the pair of them and ignored them completely.

Shannon heard the crunch as Jana's fangs bit into the box. She pulled back, tearing a large strip of wood away from it. But it wasn't enough. Shannon couldn't crawl through that. Even if she did, she'd only be crawling into Jana's jaws. The anaesthetic in her grenade had dissipated, so Jana wasn't going to fall asleep. Shannon guessed that Kyle's grenade was about to expire as well. As if speaking of the devil, a rock cracked against the box, just next to Jana's head. Kyle bent down and picked up another one as Jana turned to face him, not wanting her meal interrupted. She was about to rush him when a roar sounded from off to the right. Suddenly, Jana turned tail and ran. Kyle's eyes looked ready to drop out from widening so much.

"What the hell are you?" he screamed. Shannon couldn't see much from inside the box, but she could make out a black, furry shape move past the container's viewing window, silent only but for a low purring growl. Kyle jumped back and ran like the wind leaving Rick exhausted and alone on the ground. He didn't dare make a move to dislodge the canister from his broken teeth, but remembered the torch in his pocket. If he could get it and use it, he could disorient the creature long enough to remove the canister and get a decent head start. All he had to do was pray that it couldn't climb trees as well as him.

The only thing Shannon heard was a wet slicing sound and a brief muffled scream of agony before the thing leaned down and executed a death bite. She froze as it cast its nose to the sky. It turned to face her, blood dripping from its fangs as its golden eyes burned right through her skull. It sauntered over and forced a blood-soaked claw through the bottom of the box. It pulled back, ripping the front from it and freeing her. She stayed exactly where she was, tears streaming down her face and praying for a quick death. The creature turned away, ignoring her completely. It sauntered off into the woods without a care in the world.

Only after a solid two minutes of absolute silence did Shannon actually begin to move. Slowly, she extracted herself from the box and crept over to Rick's shattered carcass. She noticed the torch in his hand and quickly made the connection. It had killed Rick because he'd been reaching for something with the intent to harm it. It had spared her because she'd had no ill intent towards it. Clamped in Rick's other hand, she noticed a multi-tool. She grabbed it and pulled out the knife blade. Ignoring the blood that was gluing her fingers to the handle; she cut the cable tie binding Tom's wrists.

"What the hell was that?" Tom asked shakily. Shannon couldn't believe it, but knew it to be true.

"I think we've just met the Beast of Stoneybridge and lived."

 **Author's Note: Yay, I finally managed to update! Sorry this took so long. It would have been yesterday but the site wouldn't let me. Please remember to review. I'll try and double-update next time to make up for the delay. I'm still writing Chapter 11 at the moment since I took a break to write Valentine's Day Chaos. I have to say, it was kind of refreshing writing something where people _weren't_ deliberately trying to kill each other for a change. Still, the support has been great so far. Please remember to review and tell me what you think.**


	8. Chapter 7: Sylvia

Chapter 7

10 Hours until Dawn

Shannon and Tom were in the main village. They'd made it there and found a bench near the spot where Shannon had drunk all of Jana's Doldric and ended up having a sensory breakdown. She had her head in her hands while Tom rubbed her back. Her breathing came in fits and starts and Tom was doing his best to hide the fact that he was sweating profusely.

"So you think the beast of Stoneybridge is affected by the blood moon and that's why it killed Rick?" Tom asked.

"No, if it were affected, it would have killed us both." Shannon replied, gathering herself after a minute. "It definitely saw us, but it left us alone. It killed Rick because he went to hurt it. Also, did you not see the proportions of it? That thing is definitely a member of the big cat family. Felines aren't affected by the blood moon."

"Okay, so it's not a cousin of Maddy's." Tom shrugged. "But what kind of big cat is it? I've never seen anything that big before."

"It was as black as the night around us, so I could barely see it." Shannon shook her head, the answer serving to madden her with its elusiveness. "It had a mane around its neck like a male lion though. Since I don't know of any lions that are black and that big, I'm putting my money on a hybrid."

"I thought I saw spots on it, but I couldn't see much with most of my face pressed into the ground like that." Tom shrugged. Shannon looked up at that moment to see that he was holding a tissue over his nose to stop the bleeding and his left eye was nearly swollen shut. It was then that she realised he was also standing off balance.

"Tom, you're hurt!" she got up and moved to take a look.

"It's fixable and I can walk." Tom guided her hand away dismissively. "After tonight, we'll both probably end up in straight-jackets anyway."

"That's true enough." Shannon shrugged as she got up from where she'd bent to take a look at his leg.

"How's Rhydian doing, anyway?" Tom asked. Shannon pulled out her phone and was met with the sight of an empty room.

"He's gone!" Panic started to slowly fill Shannon. If Rhydian had escaped, that meant he was at just as much risk as Jana, and everyone else was in twice the danger.

"Can you pan the camera up or rewind?" Tom asked. Shannon rewound the footage only to see Rhydian's red-eyed wolf form using its head to push one of the wine shelves into just the right place. Once it was in position, the wolf jumped. Splinters of rotten wood rained down into the wine basement and the wolf's back end could be seen flailing as the front end scrabbled for purchase above ground. Eventually, he freed himself, let out a howl and was gone.

"Well, that's something I'll have to explain to my parents." Shannon muttered.

"Are you two okay there?" Shannon and Tom jumped a mile as an old lady's voice came from behind them.

"We're fine." Shannon said as she and Tom turned instantly to face her.

"Well from your paranoia, I'd say your injuries are more than just teenagers messing around." The old lady nodded knowingly. As Shannon took in her appearance, she almost wanted to laugh. The woman looked to easily be in her late sixties with ash white hair and a hand-knitted hat and cardigan. She was the stereotypical look of a sweet old grandma and was the friendliest face they'd seen all night.

"We aren't paranoid!" Tom defended a bit too quickly.

"If you say so, dear." The old lady rolled her eyes as she took out some battered old photos with an almost relieved look. It was like she was just relieved they were still there.

"I'm sorry we're on the defensive a bit." Shannon said to her. "We've just been through hell and back."

"Well, that's to be expected tonight." The old lady sat on the edge of the bench, shrugging as she did so. She said it so casually that it took a second for them to process the meaning behind her words.

"You know what's going on?" Tom couldn't believe it.

"My late husband was a Wolfblood." The woman shrugged again before tucking her photos away. "If you don't already know what that is, you'll be learning soon enough. But something tells me you're not just on a date tonight."

"Our friends are Wolfbloods." Shannon told her after a second. If this woman had been married to a Wolfblood, she was clearly no danger to them. That was unless she'd decided her husband was boring in bed and that murder was quicker than divorce. Not that she'd say _that_ out loud.

"Aren't you the girl who was on about the beast of Stoneybridge and then suddenly shut up about it?" The old lady took a second to look at Shannon more closely.

"It turned out that it was two of our friends in wolf form." Shannon shrugged. An almost relieved look crossed the woman's face.

"Well, that's all well and good then." She turned to the two of them and fixed them with another knowing look. "You still want to be careful in those woods though. You never know if what you find in there will be friendly."

"What do you mean?" Tom asked.

"Young man, I know your friend was lying just then about the beast being two Wolfbloods. A Wolfblood can't bite a sheep in half."

"It bit a sheep in half?" An intrigued look crossed Shannon's face. The lady reached into her bag and pulled out a photo album. She flicked through it until she came to the one she was looking for.

"Why would you have a picture like that?" Tom was getting more freaked out by the second. The image showed a sheep lying on its side. Its mid-section was gone, replaced by grass that was scarlet with fresh blood. The blood was clearly still pouring out from the two halves of it, which appeared to have been separated by multiple bites.

"I have that picture, my dear, because it was left in my back garden." The woman turned some pages backwards to show a young kitten that was easily the size of a grown cat. It was rolling on the sofa and playing with a squeaky fish toy.

"Is that…" Shannon was at a loss for words.

"Eleven years ago, a circus came to Stoneybridge." The woman told them. "They'd just found that cat and were going to use it in their act. I couldn't bear the thought, so I stole him and raised him. I didn't realise how big he'd get though." She flicked through and showed them a photo of a medium-sized big cat standing in a bathtub and looking none too pleased about being showered off. It was black as night with dark brown rings of fur that highlighted its black spots.

"You had that thing as a pet?" Tom couldn't believe it. This woman was clearly insane.

"He was surprisingly docile." The woman smiled at the memory. "The problem was, he needed to be with his own kind. I tried to find countries where there would be others like him, but he was a hybrid. There weren't others like him living wild and he couldn't stay at my place any longer. He barely fit in the bathtub as it was. If I took him to the vets like that at just a year old, they'd ask all sorts of questions."

"You took that when he was just one-year-old?" Now it was Shannon's turn to look amazed.

"He was barely halfway through growing and he was already the size of a small adult lion." The woman closed the photo album and sighed. "I had to release him up on the Moors in the end. About a month afterwards, he left that ram in my garden."

"You kept a hybrid big cat as a pet for a year and no one did anything?" Shannon was just wondering how all the people who ever called her crazy would react to this news.

"He'd never bite the hand that feeds him." The woman was oblivious to the fact that Shannon and Tom had backed up by two paces.

"So, why are you out tonight?" Shannon asked.

"Well, with this blood moon thing going on, I just _had_ to check on him." A vacant look had crept into the woman's eyes. "I had to see how he was doing."

"Oh, he's fine. You can trust us on that." Tom muttered. The woman turned round and gave him a puzzled look.

"He saved our lives." Shannon admitted. "There's a bad person trying to hunt our friends and he wanted to use Tom as bait. Your family pet came along and helped us."

"Oh, I am pleased." The woman's face broke into a radiant grin. "By the way, I never got your names."

"I'm Shannon and this is Tom." Shannon told her.

"I'm Sylvia Weathers." Sylvia reached over and shook Shannon's hand. "My 'family pet' as you put it is called Echo. He's a Jaglion. We were going to go with Tiddles when we first got him, but it just didn't seem to fit with his growth spurts and fangs."

"Yeah, that just wouldn't fit very well." Tom muttered.

"Well, it's good to know he's okay." Sylvia got up and shook Shannon's hand again. "If you're both still alive after tonight, it would be great to chat again."

"That's comforting." Tom rolled his eyes. "What do you mean 'if'? Please tell me you can't predict the future."

"The future is a blank page, my dear." Sylvia winked at him. "When I first got Echo, I thought he was just a regular tortoiseshell cat. I couldn't have predicted he would grow like that. Just out of curiosity, how big did he get?"

"He's bigger than us." Shannon told her.

"Well, he must be eating well." Sylvia grinned.

"You could say that." Tom nodded.

"I'd best not keep you too long." Sylvia said as she turned to leave. "If he's okay, I'll be heading home. By the way, if you see my son Kyle tonight, tell him that I'll see him in hell." For the second time, Shannon and Tom had to take a second to process what the woman had just said.

"Hang on, do you mean Kyle Weathers as in the man that goes around doing anything dishonest he can to get glory and make money?" Tom asked.

"That's the one." Sylvia nodded. "I'm very disappointed with him. If Jesus Christ appears to me and asks me to sacrifice a child, he's as good as gone."

"We've had the misfortune of running into him." Shannon said.

"Echo never liked him and I say it's with good reason." Sylvia continued. "I told him to always treat animals with respect. Now, he just goes around caging wild ones and selling them to zoos for money." She looked like she wanted to continue, but suddenly a howl cut through the air and startled everyone.

"We need to be going." Shannon said quickly. "It was lovely to have met you. Thanks for the information."

"Take care of yourselves, kids." Sylvia gave them a brief wave as she started heading back towards her house. "Don't fall down the wrong path and try not to get yourselves killed."

"Thanks for the advice." Shannon called as she and Tom started towards the source of the noise. Now they just had to round up Rhydian.


	9. Chapter 8: Maddy's Dark Side

Chapter 8

9 Hours 15 Minutes until Dawn

 **Author's Note: Warning: This chapter is one where I really tried to ramp up the horror factor. If you are of a nervous disposition of any kind, I wouldn't recommend reading this one. You have been warned. Seriously, I sent this to one of my friends and he actually requested I put a trigger/severe content warning on it.**

The moonlight from the blood moon bathed every field around Stoneybridge, its scarlet light giving a blood-tinged hue to the night's darkness. On the Moors, Jana could feel it pulsing through her as she stood at the highest point she could find and howled at the top of her lungs. But in the cellar, the smiths could hardly feel any of it. It frustrated them to no end. They stood there, howling and snarling at the intrusive metal cover that was blocking the addictive energy that they so desperately craved. They were so berserk with rage at the fact the cover was there, that it didn't even register that it was one of their own who had installed it. In fact, it didn't matter to them who installed it. What mattered was how they were going to tear it down.

Letting out a snarl, the small grey wolf took a run at the barred door of the cellar. Failing to break it down, she staggered slightly and shook her head to clear the ache that had suddenly exploded inside her skull. She prowled round the edge of the den, only to be met with a surface that was different to the rest of the right wall. When she ran her claws down it, she was able to easily leave ragged tears down the surface. Putting her full weight against it, Maddy Smith was easily able to break through the drywall repair job that her dad had done and reopen the entrance leading into the mineshaft that Liam, Jimi and Sam had opened. With a joyful howl, Maddy raced into the dark tunnel, her blood red eyes shining like beacons in the darkness. She could hear the scrabbling of her parents' paws as well, as they followed her into the night.

The tunnels ran like a maze. Each turn could lead to a dead end. Each turn could confuse them to the point that they were lost in there forever. But at that moment, no one cared. Sensing a weakness in one of the structural supports, Maddy threw her full weight against it. As if she'd planned it, the top layers of the earth fell away and created a hole big enough for all of them to jump through. One by one, they escaped into the invigorating light of the blood moon. Instantly, they felt the raw and primal bloodlust rush through them.

As Maddy and her family convulsed in pleasure at the brilliant feeling of absolute power that flowed through them, a scent caught Maddy's eye. A young doe stood on the moors, grazing on a patch of grass. Normally, she would have marvelled at the rarity of such a sight and taken a picture. But this wasn't the Maddy Smith that everyone knew and loved in control, and all she wanted to do was kill it.

Not even trying for stealth, she raced forward. The deer instantly spotted her and turned tail, but the blood moon supercharged every muscle Maddy had, granting her seemingly limitless stamina. As she jumped and her fangs closed around the doe's throat, there was a soft hiss and a wet squelching noise. Maddy looked at the deer to see a bullet hole through its abdominal section. There was a bulge out of her back where the bullet had some to rest, stretching the doe's flesh to the limit.

"Good shot, son. We'll cook up the meat and you can take it into school for the kids to be jealous of."

"Thanks, Dad."

At the sound of voices, Maddy's head snapped up. Through the red mist that was the bloodlust fogging up her mind, she could see the shapes of two humans. These humans had intruded on her kill! How dare they? The bigger of the two was the one holding the rifle. He would die first.

The father was extremely proud of his son. The bullies at school had done everything in their power to lower his boy's self-esteem. But when the school had written to the parents and said about a banquet for the lower-school children that was done in the Tudor style, he'd seen an opportunity. None of the other parents to his knowledge were licensed hunters. None of the other kids would be able to go out, shoot a doe and bring the meat in to school for the dinner. That would take those bullies down a peg or two. Suddenly, a weight hit him hard. Fangs closed around his throat as the small grey wolf pinned him to the ground. He convulsed in her grip, desperately trying to breathe as her fangs made the holes in his windpipe bigger while he struggled. He could hear his son screaming, but it sounded distant and far away.

The terrified son staggered backwards in shock as the mighty god that was his father was easily taken down by a wolf that was angry to the point of insanity. His only hope of survival rested with the rifle. But he'd given that to his dad. Suddenly, the boy remembered that he had a torch. If he could use the light, he could stun the wolf to try and get away. He pulled it from his pocket and clicked the 'on' button. The red light that indicated that the battery was depleted started flashing. He had to get away. He had to tell his mum about this. She'd know what to do. As he saw it, he was going to have to do something he was told never to do. As the wolf neared him, he held his ground and tried to hit the wolf in the muzzle with the torch. The strike was too weak and just bounced of the wolf's muzzle, only serving to anger it more. As she jumped at him, he backed up only to find that he'd been backed into a tree. Her fangs closed around his throat. As he hit the ground and his life ebbed away at the wolf's feet, the torch rolled from his hands. His dad had told him that it wasn't a hunter's tool, but a simple tool to light the way. If the batteries ever ran out, they could just replace them in the morning. Only now did he realise that replacing them in the morning would only work if morning were to ever come.

Maddy Smith stood over the corpses of her two victims. The scent of the blood pouring from their wounds and the feeling of it seeping between her paws and saturating the fur on them satisfied her no end. It calmed something inside her and made her feel like she'd just achieved something that no one else ever had. With that first kill, she'd spent a part of what made her human in return for something that could never be freely exchanged. That thing was love. She loved this new side of herself that she'd never known existed. As her parents padded over, Maddy saw something in their wolves' faces that they'd never shown her as a human. They were proud of her. In that moment, she made her decision. She was going to stay like this forever. With that, she dipped her head to the wound on the older human's throat and drank the red substance briefly, taking only a small amount as if it were the most unholy communion the world had ever known.

 **Author's Note: Well, I finally double-updated, much to the website's disgust. It seems to love telling me that there was a connection problem every time I try and upload a chapter. That's why I usually don't write multi-chapter stories. Still, I enjoyed writing this. Yes, you read that right. I've finished writing this story. I just have to post the chapters that are left. There should be another update soon. It probably won't be a double one though. As always, please remember to review. I'm especially curious as to your opinions on these two chapters.**


	10. Chapter 9: Breaking In

Chapter 9

8 Hours 30 Minutes until Dawn

"Shan, what realistic hope do we have?" Tom asked.

"What do you mean?" Shannon couldn't believe what she'd just heard. "You were the one who said to me that we needed to keep an eye on them to make sure they didn't kill anyone! Don't tell me now that you're regretting what you said, Tom. We've seen the consequences of laying low and waiting for things to happen. It cost Bernie his life. Rick saved our lives but he died because he went to hurt Echo…"

"Yeah, that's a point." Tom butted in. "Isn't it just a little bit coincidental that we met the true beast of Stoneybridge and then just so happen to meet the reason it's up on the Moors in the first lace along with Kyle's mother who just so happens to be the same person. I'm always wary of wrapping up too many mysteries too quickly."

"Maybe, but I'm never one to look a gift horse in the mouth." Shannon said.

"Yeah, but still…" Tom persisted as they walked. "When I saved you and Maddy from that fire in the lab, I knew how big the fire was, what started it and who I was after. If I were jumping into a house to save anyone, that's what I'd want to know. Shan, I don't even know what kind of house this is! I honestly don't know what we're dealing with here! We're in over our heads!"

"Maybe we are, Tom." Shannon nodded. "But when you wanted to go to try and help Rhydian through half of his problems, did I ever argue?"

"No, you didn't." Tom admitted.

"No. That's because I trust you." Shannon said, hugging him briefly. "What we're doing now isn't easy, but it _is_ a sort of unwritten duty we have. We know the secret. We have to save everyone we can or die trying. We just don't have the luxury of curling up in bed and waiting to see how many people are alive come the morning. I count just over eight hours until dawn. We can do it."

"Shannon, we've nearly died tonight." Tom reminded her. "I'm limping, you're clearly mentally scarred and we've just witnessed a death by what is effectively the most docile creature we're going to see tonight!"

"Tom, he was just defending himself." Shannon countered. "So was Rick, and he saved our lives too. We need to carry on if for no other reason that he died so we could live. We have to make this count."

"Listen to yourself!" Tom's voice came out a bit louder than he would have liked. "We're sixteen years old! We shouldn't have to worry about people laying down their lives for us!"

"Whether we like it or not Tom, it's happened." Shannon shrugged. "We can deal with our guilt in the morning. Once we save everyone, the Wolfbloods can tell us that we did the right thing and so on like they usually do. For now, I'm just content to make sure no one else dies."

"How are we going to do that though, Shan?" Tom asked. She could see that he clearly didn't want to go on.

"Tom, if this is too much, the head back to my place and get warm." Shannon reached into her pocket and held her house key out to him.

"Shan, I'm just saying that we need a proper plan." Tom reasoned. "I think we should look at heading back to your place, make a plan and _then_ go out and do something."

"What's the honest point?" Shannon shrugged. "We plan; we get there and then all hell breaks loose."

"Yeah, but because we made a plan in the first place it usually goes alright." Tom replied. "Shan, it won't take more than an hour, I promise."

"Tom, there's at least two Wolfbloods loose right now. Do you know how many they could kill in an hour?"

"That depends on how many people have the common sense to stay indoors." Tom came over and wrapped his arms around Shannon. "Look, I know who you're worried about. Harry is going to be fine. But if anything, I think we should go over to the Smiths' house and check that they're still where they should be."

"I suppose you're right." Shannon muttered as Tom let go. "What do we do if they're not there?"

"Well, panicking would be a start." Tom rolled his eyes. "I suppose we'll just have to cross that bridge if and when we come to it."

"I really hope they don't end up hurting people, Tom." Shannon said. "Maddy's always been so easy-going, I know it would destroy her if someone ended up getting hurt tonight."

"Shan, you need to calm down." Tom pulled Shannon close again and this time held on until her breathing had slowed down.

"You're right." Shannon muttered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, just keep it together." Tom told her. "If we're going to lose it, let's do it at your house where it's warm and mostly safe."

"What do you mean 'mostly' safe?" Shannon asked.

"Well, Rhydian was able to get out of it." Tom reasoned. "If he got out, what's to stop others from getting in?"

"That's a fair point." Shannon nodded. "My biggest concern there is that we'll have to explain the damage in the beer hatch to my parents."

"Just tell them the wood was rotten and a fox fell through it." Tom shrugged. "Whatever happens, we can deal with it later. The big concern right now should be making sure everyone else is safe. How far is Maddy's place from here?"

"It's quite a distance." Shannon mentally weighed up their options. "I think our best bet is to cut through the Moors and drop down on their back garden. We can get to the hatch from there and see right in."

"And what if they jump up and take our faces off?" Tom asked. "Not to mention, the air would blow into the den as we opened the hatch and they'd smell us in an instant."

"In that case, we'll do it the old fashioned way." Shannon reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys. "Let's see: my house, your house… ah, here we go!" she held up one of the keys and showed it to Tom.

"Damn, that just reminded me I forgot my house keys." Tom muttered as they started towards the Moors. After a few steps, Tom stopped dead. "Hang on: Jana and Rhydian are both loose! Wouldn't the Moors be where they might go?"

"They probably wouldn't be near Maddy's house though." Shannon countered. "Wolfbloods are only safe together on blood moons if they're blood related. That's what Maddy told me. Rhydian and Jana probably found their own little corners of it to patrol. And they'd also have to avoid Echo."

"I still find it too convenient that the batty old woman kept a jaglion as a pet for a year and is also the mother of the man that tried to murder us!" Tom rolled his eyes.

"Like I said Tom, the truth sounds insane sometimes, but that doesn't mean that it's not." Shannon shrugged. "We can worry about that later."

"Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that if Jana and Rhydian would go up to the Moors, why wouldn't Maddy and her family?" Shannon's blood turned to ice in a way that the cold could never hope to achieve. Tom was right. If Maddy and her family had somehow broken loose, the first place they would go was probably the Moors. She could have been leading them straight to a very painful death.

"You're right." Shannon admitted again. "Okay, we'll go to Plan C. We walk straight up the country lane Maddy lives up. If anything jumps out at us, we use Kyle's torches to give it quick and repeated blasts of light, but we won't use the strobe function. That's only for if Kyle comes near us."

"That sounds good to me." Tom grinned. "If something comes near us, we blind them in a way that won't damage them permanently and if Kyle comes along we'll blast him with two sets of strobe lights."

"Come on, let's just get moving." Shannon beckoned him to follow. Every step was an effort as they reluctantly trudged towards Maddy's place. The country lane that seemed only minutes of walking when they were all together and gossiping, that always cast such a friendly and welcoming aura; now seemed an hour-long walk through hell that stretched endlessly before them.

"I wish we'd brought our bikes!" Tom moaned.

"Keep your voice down!" Shannon said quickly. "If one of us is too loud and they're loose then we're wolf food!"

"I think we need to be careful what we wish for." Tom looked up, pointing to a grassy bank on the slope up to the Moors. A pair of blood red eyes glared at them from the top of the slope.

"Okay, let's get ready." Shannon grabbed her torch and clicked the button on. Tom did the same. As if sensing their intent, the wolf sprang from its hiding spot and flung itself into a charge in their direction. The blood moon seemed to be powering the wolf's bloodlust and stamina at the cost of all strategic knowledge. Shannon raised her torch briefly. The sharp flash of light into the wolf's eyes broke its focus and disoriented it. Tom followed suit, waving his torch beam across the wolf's eye line.

The wolf was completely blinded temporarily, causing it to stagger and fall. Knowing that the attack had gone disastrously and knowing that the targets had a means of defending themselves; it took advantage of the fact that they hadn't killed it yet and sprang back up. It let out a growl as a warning not to chase it and ran before Tom or Shannon could react.

"Could you tell who it was?" Tom asked.

"I think that was Dan." Shannon shivered at the thought that her best friend's dad had just tried to kill them. She knew this kind of thing could happen, but it didn't make it less frightening when it did.

"I think I just saw my life in front of my eyes." Tom gasped.

"I think we can safely say then that Maddy and her parents are loose." Shannon muttered.

"Should we turn back?" Tom asked.

"No, I want to see how they got out." Shannon replied. Tom clearly didn't like the idea, but he trusted her too much to argue. They continued up the old country road until the familiar sight of Maddy's house met them. Normally, the place would give off a welcoming and pleasant aura. But tonight was different. Tonight, the air and general tone of the whole thing had changed. They didn't feel welcome or even remotely wanted. They didn't feel the usual feeling of comfort or safety that always came with seeing Maddy's house. This time, it was as though the house itself were trying to warn them to stay away at all costs. They walked up to Maddy's front door. Shannon stuck her key in the lock and stepped back.

"What are you waiting for?" Tom asked.

"Go on then." Shannon gestured to the door.

"What?" Tom couldn't believe it. "No way in hell! I plan on living past today!"

"Tom, the Wolfbloods aren't going to be in there." Shannon tried her hardest to sound more confident than she felt. What was honestly going to happen? Would they find Emma in the kitchen on her hind legs making breakfast with her paws while Maddy stuck her muzzle under Emma's shoulder and ate it before it was done? There was just no way the wolves were in there. They had no opposable thumbs. They wouldn't be able to unlock the door and get in.

"Oh, aren't they? Tom looked sceptical. "I'll Rock, Paper, Scissors you for it."

"Okay then." Shannon nodded. One game (and Shannon's refusal to do best-of-three) later, Tom opened the door to the house and cautiously crept inside. He swung his torch beam around slowly, trying to spot any signs of life. At his signal, Shannon moved up and joined him.

"I hate you sometimes!" Tom snapped.

"Maybe if you ever picked anything other than paper…" Shannon grinned smugly. Just to be on the safe side, they crept as quietly as possible through the house. Suddenly, a crash rang through the air. Shannon spun around, feeling ready to die of a heart attack.

"Sorry." Tom cringed, glancing briefly at where the vase he'd knocked off lay on the floor.

"What the hell, Tom!" Shannon whispered savagely. "Why don't you go ahead and make all the noise?"

"I'm sure Emma won't mind once we explain this to her." Tom shrugged.

"I couldn't care less about Emma!" Shannon snapped. "I damn near had a heart attack just then!"

"Let's just get to the cellar." Tom rolled his eyes.


	11. Chapter 10: Plan

Chapter 10

7 Hours 15 Minutes until Dawn

"Yeah, they definitely got loose."

"Thanks for pointing that out, Tom." Shannon muttered, looking at the carnage of the den. It was immediately obvious to her what had happened. Dan had put a metal cover over the cellar's coal hatch. It had done its job at keeping them in, but it had also driven them berserk. They'd sought a way out, with one of them even charging the bars to the main door with enough force to buckle them. Eventually, one of them had found the quick repair job Dan had done over the hole in the wall and smashed it down. They'd then run into the mineshaft and somehow found a way out into Stoneybridge.

"Well, I'm out of ideas!" Tom smashed his fist into the metal bars of the door and then recoiled in pain.

"Yeah, but I'm not." Shannon countered, turning to him. "Kyle had loads of those bait canisters on his truck. Assuming the truck is still there, we can take Maddy's school bag from the coat rack, empty her books out, take Dan and Emma's bikes and grab as many as we can. All we have to do then is rig them up in the den to go off simultaneously, except for one. One of us then takes a ball of string, and goes through the mineshaft, unwinding it as we go. We find the hole they got out from, set that grenade off there, use the string to find our way back and get back to the den. They'll probably get there too late for the one at the entrance to put them under, but they'll still follow our scent back into the den. If we do our jobs right, they should all detonate and release a cloud of gas large enough to put them all under for three hours. That will give us plenty of time to seal that hole in a way that would make it impossible for them to escape through. Either that, or we do it in a way that tricks them into thinking they can't get out."

"Shan, you're on about gassing our friends here!" Tom reminded her.

"The label on the back of the one I stole said they were perfectly harmless." Shannon reminded him. "It's been engineered to put them under for exactly three hours, remember?"

"Even so, what do we do about Rhydian and Jana?" Tom asked.

"We'll worry about them in a bit." Shannon shrugged. "I'd rather focus on the three Wolfbloods who are likely to stay together and greatly reduce the threat than worry about Rhydian and Jana first when they could each be on opposite ends of the town."

"Okay, that makes sense." Tom muttered. "I just hope they forgive us. Right: we lure Maddy and her family back, knock them out with the fart grenades and then seal the hole before going after Rhydian and Jana."

"That's basically it." Shannon nodded.

"Okay, but how are we going to keep them contained if we can't patch the hole enough to make them think they can't get out?" Tom asked. Just then, the answer hit the pair of them. They remembered Rhydian telling them about Maddy and the Wolfsbane pill Shannon had given her, and how he'd stopped her from hurting anyone then.

"Okay then. One of us needs to go back and get the gas canisters, and one of us needs to go and pick thistles." Shannon said.

"I'll Rock, Paper, Scissors you for it." Tom replied. There were no prizes for guessing who won.

"Okay, so I'll see you after I get the canisters and get back here." Shannon said as she made her way up into the main house with Tom trudging behind her, literally hating his life. "Remember, we need ten thistle roots. That's two per Wolfblood in case of a problem."

"Just don't let Kyle kill you." Tom muttered as they made it into the main house and he grabbed a Tesco carrier bag from by the door.

"Don't end up as wolf food." Shannon replied. She tried to offer a reassuring grin, but failed. Shannon's job meant that she only had Kyle to worry about. Tom was going to have to dodge at least three Wolfbloods. If Rhydian and Jana were to show up too, it could mean big trouble. Still, it wasn't her problem. He lost the game. "You have your torch to wave in their faces if they show up. Don't use the strobe function unless their fangs are literally inches from your throat and you don't have any other choice." Shannon reminded him. "I know I haven't been there as much since Harry and I started dating, but I really don't want you dead. We've known each other all our lives."

"Thanks, Shan." Tom nodded.

"I know. If you got killed by Maddy and her family, it would ruin my friendship with them." Shannon said before bursting out laughing. In spite of his frustration at the suicide run he was about to make, Tom found himself laughing too.

"Thanks a bunch, Shan." Tom rolled his eyes. "You know; you could have saved the dead friend jokes until _after_ they face the mortal peril."

"Thanks, I'll bare that in mind." On impulse, Shannon reached forward and hugged Tom. Tom returned the gesture and she stepped back before grabbing Maddy's schoolbag. She quickly ran upstairs and emptied Maddy's books onto her bed before running back down and following Tom outside. Emma and Dan had two really decrepit old bikes from years ago in the shed. The frames were rusty and the tyres needed pumping up a bit, but it would have to do with the circumstances.

"Shan, these things are falling apart!" Tom said, looking the bikes over.

"It'll be alright." Shannon shrugged. "I have further to ride than you anyway."

"That's if I can ride this thing at all." Tom looked at the chain on Dan's bike. It looked like the slightest touch would cause it to disintegrate.

"Maddy's got an old scooter in the back if you can't." Shannon reminded him. Tom walked over and pulled the dust cover off the folded scooter.

"No, she hasn't!" he called over. "Dan's stripped it for parts!"

"That sucks." Shannon muttered. "Well, we have to use something! This stuff could be our only hope if Kyle or a Wolfblood shows up! What about Maddy's old bike?"

"It's too small for me." Tom replied.

"I was thinking of me." Shannon told him. "If I can take Maddy's old bike and you take Emma's then we'll both have something to ride."

"Shan, that thing doesn't look like it was maintained any better than these two." Tom looked over at where Maddy's old bike sat neglected.

"Well then, I guess we'll just have to run for it." Shannon shrugged.

"We can't go doing that without some protection." Tom replied. "Remember, I nearly died last time Kyle found us, and he forced you to watch."

"You don't have to remind me." Shannon shuddered at the memory. "Okay, we definitely need to protect ourselves." She walked to the back and grabbed a shovel and a bent piece of metal that looked to be part of the old swing that Maddy used to have in the back garden. "Do you want the shovel or the bar?" She asked.

"I'll take the first one." Tom shrugged. "I'm going to be digging up thistles anyway, so it'll come in handy."

"Okay then." Shannon threw him the shovel and slung the metal bar through the strap of Maddy's bag. "Remember: if they come for you up on the Moors, use the flat end of the shovel. I'm sure they'll forgive you for saving yourself at the expense of them getting concussion."

"I have the torch as well." Tom nodded. "Do you want to walk part of the way down the lane together? We can meet up at the same point and head back together too." Shannon mulled the idea over and nodded.

"That's a good idea. That way, we can minimise the time we're alone."

"Okay, then let's get moving." Tom gestured for her to follow. Together, they made their way down the Smiths' driveway and out into the narrow lane that led to their house. About halfway down, Shannon turned to him.

"Stay safe, Tom." She hugged him briefly and then continued on.

"You be careful too." Tom muttered as he headed for the Moors.


	12. Chapter 11: Den Mayhem

Chapter 11

6 Hours 30 Minutes until Dawn

Shannon was exhausted by the time she made it to the pickup truck that she and Tom had raided a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then, she felt ready to go over on the spot. She knew as soon as she saw the truck that Kyle had been telling the truth. Jana had clearly come along after they'd gassed Steve.

His body was gone, but claw marks littered the area around the open door and blood painted the trucks maroon body a deep scarlet. Bite marks could also be seen on the base of the seat, with chunks of leather missing where she'd bitten them off trying to drag the man's massive body out of the truck. Whether he was alive at that time, Shannon would never know, but no one could lose that amount of blood and live. She knew that once a pool of blood reaches a certain size, there's no going back. Accounting for the blood on the ground, on the body of the truck along with the seats, and the fact that half the windscreen was slicked red as well, the odds of Steve surviving were looking grim.

Shannon shook her focus away from that. She and Tom might have caused that, but it didn't make them responsible, did it? They weren't to have known that Jana would come back and they weren't to have known that doing what they did would cause a death. Right now, she only had one objective: grab as many bait canisters as possible along with anything else that might be useful and get back to Maddy's house to get set up. They had one shot to make this work and potentially save Stoneybridge. She loved Maddy and everyone else to pieces, but right now they were just too dangerous to be left running around. Cursing herself for the way she was about to trap some of her closest friends, she grabbed every single box of gas grenades that would fit in Maddy's school bag. They weren't very big and each box held about ten. That was six boxes overall. That would be more than enough to put the wolves to sleep and also keep them covered so that if they were still trying to cover the hole they could just knock them out again. She hated herself for thinking like that, but it was either that or they might as well lie down and let themselves be killed. Tom was right, no sixteen year-old deserved these kinds of decisions. In fact, no one did. Age aside, no human being deserved to have to safeguard others against the threat of death.

Meanwhile, Tom had just finished up on the Moors. The carrier bag he'd brought was full to the brim with thistles that he'd dug up. All he had to do was wait until the wolves were asleep, then go in there and cram the root section of one in each of their mouths. That wouldn't be too hard provided one of them didn't manage to snap their jaws shut in his sleep and bite his hand off. Knowing his luck, that's exactly what would happen. Just then, a howl pierced the quiet night.

' _Okay, it's now definitely time to go_.' Tom thought to himself. He quickly fired off a text to Shannon telling her that he was heading back to Maddy's house and to call if there was any trouble.

Once Tom made it back, he found the one thing he never expected to see. One of the wolves glared up at him from in the den, its red eyes seeming to burn into his skull.

At that moment, Shannon arrived and startled him.

"Shan, will you please not do that tonight?" Tom begged as he tried to stave off a heart attack.

"Sorry about that." Shannon grinned in a way that suggested she was anything but.

"We've got a problem." Tom pointed into the den. Shannon looked through the open coal hatch and her grin only got wider.

"I don't see how that's a problem." Shannon shrugged. "If that's one of the Smiths, we can use them to help bait the others into the den."

"Shan, what if that's Rhydian?" Tom explained. "They'll tear him apart before we get chance to pull the pin on them."

"I didn't think about that." Shannon swore under her breath. "Okay, our only option is to gas it and drag it outside the den then use the three hours that it's asleep for to trap the rest of them. We'll tie their legs together and then cram a thistle root in their mouths. That should keep them all down until dawn."

"Why are you saying 'it'? That's one of our friends, Shan!" Tom defended.

"Tom, I can't even tell what gender that wolf is in this light and from this distance." Shannon replied patiently. "It's like I said: I'm a nerd, not a miracle worker. I don't want to shine my torch down there and risk agitating it. Let's gas it first and work out who it is later." Shannon reached into her bag and pulled out one of the many gas grenades she'd grabbed from Kyle's truck.

"There are so many jokes I want to make right now about kids using grenades." Tom rolled his eyes and took another one from the bag.

"Okay, so if we throw these to each end of the room it'll have nowhere to go." Shannon whispered to him. "I'll try and aim as close to the hole in the wall as possible. That way it can't escape through it." Tom nodded, pulling the pin on his canister and throwing it through the coal hatch. He aimed right while Shannon threw left. The gas instantly started escaping and it wasn't long before they heard a thud as a dead weight hit the floor.

"Come on, let's get down there." Tom got up and went to close the hatch.

"No, leave it open." Shannon instructed, stopping him. "That way, the anaesthetic will have dissipated by the time we get down there."

"That's too many nerd words." Tom threw the door he was holding back where it had been to let the gas escape. They let themselves in through the front door and went down into the den. They dragged the wolf outside while Shannon shone her torch over it to have a look.

"It's a male. I think it might be Rhydian." Tom let out a frustrated sigh. "God forbid anything should ever go smoothly."

"Tom, this is good." Shannon reminded him. "We have one of them now and if all goes well then we're about to get three more. Let's tie him up and cram a thistle in his mouth then get on with the rest of the plan."

Tom worked on tying up Rhydian while Shannon grabbed a ball of wool from Emma's craft basket upstairs. Once Tom had finished, he cut the root section off a thistle with the penknife in Shannon's bag and jammed pieces of it under Rhydian's tongue and in his cheeks, making sure that he would be able to swallow them when he came to. He looked up as he heard Shannon making her way back downstairs.

"You can't imagine how rank his dog breath is!" Tom pulled a face as he wiped his hands on the front of his shirt.

"Well, you can wash the stink off at sunrise." Shannon shrugged as she made her way to the opening in the wall. "Okay, I need you to hold the wool and let it unravel with me as I move. I'll find the way the Smiths got out and plant a gas canister there. Then I'll plant more as I go and let them off so I can get out of there before I get put to sleep."

"You'd better come out of there alive." Tom fixed her with a stare that brooked no argument.

"I plan to." Shannon nodded. She grabbed the end of the wool and started walking into the darkness, with Tom letting the ball in his hands unravel as she went. It was only then that a thought occurred to Tom. Dan had put a metal cover over the den. He remembered seeing it when they went in after finding out the Smiths weren't there. He looked over to see it in a twisted heap on the floor. He knew Dan was skilled with woodwork not metalwork, so if Rhydian had fallen on it and his weight had torn it down, he could believe that. But how had the hatch been opened? They hadn't opened it. Rhydian couldn't have done it without human fingers. Only one person he knew of would be insane enough to open that hatch on a night like this in the first place. But if he were around, he would have attacked by now. Unless... Frantically, Tom grabbed his phone and called Shannon, praying that she was close enough to still get a signal.

" _What is it, Tom_?" Shannon's voice blared from his phone.

"You need to run!" Tom said desperately. "It's Kyle!"

" _What about Kyle_?"

"He's in the tunnel! He's in there with you!" Suddenly, Tom heard a male voice down the phone as the person leapt from the shadows with a scream of fury. That was then followed by a scream of pain as Shannon pulled her torch from her belt and blasted him in the eyes with the strobe function. Tom then heard her grab something out of his hand and start cracking him across the head with it as hard as she could.

" _Kyle's out of action_." Shannon said breathlessly. " _Should I use a gas canister_?"

"I would try and find the escape route and then lure the Smiths down here first." Tom suggested. "If they pick him off on the way, so be it."

"That's dark, Tom. Shannon snapped. "I was thinking why not tie him up, gag him with a thistle root and then take him to the police in the morning and tell them he tried to kill us?"

"I suppose either is good." Tom shrugged reluctantly. "I guess it would be cool to see him having a meltdown in court because he didn't get his own way."

"I was thinking the same thing." Shannon muttered. "Come and help me drag him outside the den and we'll put him next to Rhydian."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tom didn't know he liked that prospect.

"We'll tie him up, Tom. He'll be going nowhere."


	13. Chapter 12: Kyle's Journal

Chapter 12

3 Hours 30 Minutes until Dawn

Tom heaved a sigh of relief as he finally relaxed back after tying Kyle up. Where was an impressive welt forming on Kyle's temple where Shannon had struck him so many times in the exact same place. The weapon had turned out to be a crowbar which Tom had taken great delight in hurling out through the coal hatch. The Smiths were probably going to be furious when they woke up in the morning if the plan worked, but they'd hopefully understand and forgive them.

"Where are you getting all this rope?" Tom asked as Shannon dumped a load more by his feet.

"There's some I kept from when I used to go hunting the beast." Shannon told him. "There's also some from my parents' wardrobe with a surprisingly high tensile strength and Dan has loads of it in his workshop to hold the wood together while the Epoxy sets."

"Why would your parents have rope in the... Never mind, I don't want to know!" Tom regretted ever asking.

"I'm joking, Tom." Shannon rolled her eyes. "None if it came from my parents' wardrobe."

"Thank god for that." Tom replied as he got up and walked back to the hole in the wall with Shannon.

"It was in the bedside table bottom drawer." Shannon muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Tom really hoped he didn't hear what he thought he heard.

"It's nothing." Shannon gave a grin that wouldn't have fooled a toddler.

"We'll talk about this later!" Tom snapped as he picked up the ball of wool.

"I don't think we will, somehow." Shannon replied as he offered her the end of it and she took it before walking into the tunnel again.

Roughly thirty seconds later, she came running back out while pulling the pin on a gas canister and tossing it into the hole. There were three sounds of dead weight hitting the floor.

"That went better than I expected it to." Shannon muttered. "The two canisters we threw in before must have attracted them."

"How the hell would two gas grenades be able to attract wolves from basically half way across the Moors?" Tom wasn't good at maths, but those numbers didn't add up.

"Tom, the anaesthetic is short range but wolves have over two-million scent receptors in their noses." Shannon replied. "We don't know how far they can smell the bait from. I'd be surprised if Kyle did either, to be honest."

"I suppose that's a fair point." Tom muttered as he grabbed Dan and started dragging while Shannon started pulling Maddy.

"Okay, what technique did you use for tying Rhydian up?" Shannon asked.

"I wrapped one rope around all four limbs to restrict their movements." Tom replied. "I also loosely tied his jaws so he can sort himself out if he chokes."

"Okay, if you make a start on that, I'll start cutting up some thistle root." Shannon suggested. Tom pulled her penknife from his back pocket and passed it to her.

In half an hour, they had all four wolves tied up with pieces of thistle root in their mouths to keep them subdued.

"We've done it." Tom let out a breath he had no idea he was holding.

"What about Jana?" Shannon wasn't ready to settle down yet.

"Shan, we have to keep the majority of them locked down for the rest of the blood moon." Tom replied, moving round and hugging her from behind. "If we keep these four and Kyle trapped, the danger will be mostly over. Having Jana running around alone is better than having five Wolfbloods on the loose with no control over themselves."

"Tom, we can't leave people in danger." Shannon protested.

"We won't." Tom countered. "We'll go and find her once we're sure none of them are going anywhere. I don't want to untie them until they've turned human again. And we _need_ to do something with Kyle as well."

"I have an idea about that." Shannon grinned.

"Let me guess: You're thinking about tossing him in the bike shed, aren't you?" Tom grinned.

"That sounds like it's unanimously carried." Shannon went round and grabbed Kyle's feet. Tom got his top half and together they carried him out through the main house and around to the bike shed. They opened the door and tossed him in before shutting him in total darkness. He barely even stirred in his sleep.

"So, do you have a plan for keeping all of them locked up until dawn?" Tom asked. "I can't think of a way to block up the hole properly that means they won't know they can get out if they manage to shake the ropes off."

"There's less expanding foam in Dan's workshop than I thought and I don't know anything else that might do the job." Shannon shrugged. I think our best option is to do the same again. I go into the hole and use Kyle's bait grenades to try and lure Jana in. We'll just have to hope she's close enough. If we can knock her out in the tunnel, that means we can keep her subdued along with the rest of them." They were about to walk back into the house as they talked. Suddenly, Tom's foot brushed against something.

"What's this?" he asked, grabbing it off the floor. Flicking through the pages, the teens began to read.

' _Hunting Journal: Kyle Weathers_

 _Blood Moon Start: There's no doubt in my mind. This is the blood moon that was reported five-hundred years ago. I've been digging through the archives of the news for years looking for an event like this. If I'm to catch the wolves of Stoneybridge, it's tonight when they have no control. Upon arrival, we immediately found signs of foul play. The senile old fool who owns the cafe Shannon Kelly loved so much was brutally killed by a wolf. That doctor at the hospital disclosed everything when I pretended to be a relative. I need to give credit where credit was due, she was very thorough. She was a black woman. She was real pain in the arse with her questions and very full of herself. She had a nice pair of legs though. Maybe I should have tried to get lucky_.'

Tom bristled as he realised Kyle was on about his mum.

' _Blood Moon Midnight: I had one of them! One of the wolves nearly took the bait I laid out for it. I even found two kids willing to help me set my trap. But then something else appeared. In my own mind, I believe it to have been an illusion. Research backs that theory. Wikipedia also tells me that nerds are especially susceptible to it as a result of the blood moon. It also mentions gingers, so I can only imagine what Shannon must be seeing. This belief is fuelled by the fact that I also glimpsed my mother at one point. I know this to be impossible though. Sylvia Weathers has been dead for some years._

 _It was over the grief of having to release that creature she rescued into the wild. She loved that monster more than her own son. Even today, that memory saddens me more than I care to admit. I warned her at the start it was a bad idea to take it in, but she thought I was jealous of it. I always maintain that was a slanderous lie, and especially so because it's true. I tried everything to please my mother, but nothing could ever compete with that aberration._

 _But part of me can't help but wonder: was that really you, Echo_?'

"What the hell is he going on about?" Shannon muttered furiously. "Sylvia can't be dead! We saw her a few hours ago! And what the hell has Wikipedia got against gingers?"

"You can't deny though, your hair colour matches the moon right now."Tom grinned, earning a smack. "Seriously though, I can't believe how he's just sat there and lied about how he tried to use us as bait! Part of me actually feels violated at the memory of that!"

' _Blood Moon Dawn: Tonight has been cruel. I've lost many supplies and everyone who set out with the intent to help me is dead. The sky now turns pale as the last hours of the blood moon roll over. I have one last chance. Too much has been lost to leave with nothing gained_.'

"I actually pity him." Shannon put the little journal in her pocket and led Tom into the house. All the wolves were still sleeping and immobilised.

"What do we do now?" Tom asked.

"The plan hasn't changed." Shannon picked up the ball of wool and held it out to him.

"You've put your life on the line enough." Tom said, moving to take the end. "Let me do it."

"No, I don't want to lose you." Shannon also went to take the end.

"I'll Rock, Paper, Scissors you for it." Tom grinned. Instantly, Shannon's index and middle fingers split open into scissors. In response, Tom's fist clenched.

"And of course, I won... Wait... What?" Shannon couldn't believe it.

"Have you ever heard of lulling someone into a false sense of security?" Tom asked smugly.

"Do you want to go best of three?" Shannon asked.


	14. Chapter 13: Wolfblood Sunrise

Chapter 13

45 Minutes until Dawn

 **Author's Note: Okay guys, this will be the second to last update of Blood Moon. I will double-update the last chapter with the epilogue and there will be a special announcement at the end of the epilogue confirming something you may or may not guess by then. Jkirsch is the only one who knows so far (So no spoilers please) but the rest of you will be finding out soon. Thanks for all the reviews I've had on this story. You guys are the main reason that I chose to try doing another multi-chapter story. This is my first one for Wolfblood as I mentioned and it's easily my most successful one yet. Thanks again so much for all the support and I hope you enjoy.**

"I actually can't believe that worked again." Tom muttered as he finished tying up the red wolf that had just tried to tear his face off and now lay sleeping like a puppy at his feet. He jammed a piece of thistle root that Shannon passed him under her tongue and loosely roped her jaws together.

"This stuff seems to be irresistible to wolves and Wolfbloods alike." Shannon added. "Though I'm surprised Echo hasn't come running yet."

"Shan, what if Kyle's journal was right about Echo being a hallucination?" Tom asked. "He had a reason to lie about trying to catch Jana because he did something illegal to do it, but he had no reason to lie about his mother or what the blood moon might actually be capable of."

"What are you saying, Tom?" Shannon asked.

"I'm saying we've been going all night with no sleep, no food and picking up bumps and bruises as we go." Tom replied. "I'm saying I'm physically exhausted and the next best thing to emotionally broken. I just want to sit down and cry myself to sleep. If you're honest with yourself, I don't really think you're doing much better, are you?" There was a pause before Shannon shook her head.

"I honestly don't know what I'm running on right now."

"I say the best thing we can do is to go up to the main house and raid the fridge." Tom said. "Once we at least get some food in us, we'll be able to think straighter."

"Tom, we can't raid someone else's food!" Shannon countered. "It's not ours to take. We've both done a lot of things that we're not proud of tonight, among which we've tied our friends up, caused someone's death and broken into a bike shed. I don't want to add stealing food to our list."

"It's not stealing, Shan." Tom assured her. "The Smiths know us. They have known us for years. We're part of their pack. I'm sure once we tell them everything that's happened they won't be worried about a bacon sandwich or two."

"If they eat us alive in the morning because you've stolen bacon from them, I'll make sure you die first." Shannon said, her hunger winning over. Tom raced up the stairs into the main house. A few minutes later, he came back with two plates of bacon sandwiches. "That was quick." Shannon observed.

"Bacon doesn't take long." Tom shrugged as he pulled out a bottle of ketchup. Around them, the wolves growled in their sleep. "Maybe we should take this upstairs."

Shannon and Tom flopped down on the Smiths' sofa. They were away from the wolves that they once called friends. In just over half an hour, they would all be friends again. They had no illusions that things would ever truly go back to the way they were. Things had happened on this night that could never be forgotten. They'd nearly died on a number of occasions. If Kyle hadn't shown up, things would almost certainly have been so much easier.

"So, what are we going to do with Kyle?" Tom asked as he tucked in.

"I think we should keep him locked down until Maddy and her family change back." Shannon replied as she grabbed another sandwich for herself. Annoyingly, Tom hadn't put ketchup on any of them and they were awfully dry compared to what she was used to as a result. But she was so low on energy that she wasn't about to complain. "Once they're in human form again, we can tell them everything and get their help taking him to the police station. At the very least we can get him on a GBH charge with what he did to his camera man. At worst, it's two counts of attempted murder. That's got to put him out of our hair for at least six years."

"Well that's six years I will be sure to make the most of." Tom relaxed back and stretched. Shannon couldn't help but notice the way his left arm draped over her shoulders as if wanting to hug her closer despite knowing she was going out with Harry. As far as she was concerned, it didn't matter. She was exhausted. She leaned over and curled up next to Tom, resting her head against his side before hugging her knees to her chest.

Just then, a noise from outside snapped the two of them out of their stupor. They raced out to see Kyle frantically clambering out through the coal hatch. He saw that they'd spotted him and started running. Despite their exhaustion, Shannon and Tom gave chase. He was too dangerous to be allowed to escape.

"How the hell did he get loose?" Shannon wondered aloud. "What was he doing in the den?" Shannon needn't have asked because she quickly got her answer. Tom suddenly went down in a sea of fur, teeth and claws. Kyle had let the wolves loose! Shannon turned and was about to go back and help him when she was kicked to the floor from the side.

"You're just _determined_ to be the heroine tonight aren't you, Shannon?" Kyle spat ferociously.

"What do you get out of this?" Shannon tried to hold back a sob, both from the pain and the sound of Tom's frantic yelling.

"You're asking the wrong questions now, Shannon." Kyle paced around her slowly. "It's not what I have to gain now. It's what I can't afford to _lose_! I may be a gambler, but even I know there are some bets that just shouldn't be taken!" Shannon used the distraction to try to save herself. She jumped up and charged, head-butting Kyle in the stomach. Kyle brought his knee up and connected with her temple. She fell back temporarily dazed.

"God, that hurt!" she coughed out.

"You have spirit, Shannon; but this is the real world!" All trace of calmness was gone from Kyle's voice. "The real world is cold! The real world doesn't give a crap about spirits!" With that, Kyle landed a savage kick on Shannon. He tried again, but this time she kicked out and hit him in the kneecap, taking all the power out of it. "If you want to be a true beast hunter, then play the part! Just lie down and die at their feet as every hunter before you has!"

"What does that make someone who's as evil as you, then?" Shannon gasped, frantically trying to draw air into her lungs.

"I'll just do what I do best!" Kyle snapped as he paced around Shannon victoriously. "I'll lie; cheat, steal and above all I'll survive!" No sooner had Kyle finished his sentence than something extraordinary happened. A black pair of furry jaws closed around Kyle's right arm. There was a crunch followed by his ear-splitting scream. With that arm rendered useless, Echo clamped his jaws on Kyle's head. The death bite caused Echo's fangs to punch through Kyle's skull with ease. Kyle dropped to the floor, limp and lifeless.

The Jaglion dropped his kill, walking over to the girl who lay prone and bruised on the floor. He moved close, breathing in her delicate scent. His tongue lightly brushed her face. She flinched away at first, but then realised he meant no harm.

"Thank you, Echo." Shannon reached out a trembling hand and closed her eyes. When they came in contact with fur, she opened them again. Jana's blood red eyes glared back at her. "That can't have been and illusion!" Shannon gasped. "That had to have been real!" Jana's red eyes burned into Shannon's skull. The heat of her glare was unforgiving. "Just do it!" Shannon sat back, feeling utterly defeated. As she watched, the most brilliant thing happened. The red glow in Jana's eyes faded. Instantly, the yellow flames that flooded them in a golden inferno were warm and friendly. She looked over to see Tom being practically licked to death by the other Wolfbloods. Dawn had arrived.

Shannon and Tom were so wrapped up in the Wolfbloods that they failed to notice they were being watched. An old lady stood on the edge to the Moors. Just beside her aged form stood the shadowy figure of the Beast of Stoneybridge. As Sylvia Weathers faded from the land of the living, her memory never leaving the creature she'd saved and taken care of, Echo slipped silently between the trees and out of sight.


	15. Chapter 14: Dawn

Chapter 14

Dawn

As Tom and Shannon watched, Jana picked herself up from where she'd face-planted in the dirt after her transformation. Dan helped Emma up as Rhydian also staggered to his feet.

"Is everyone alright?" Dan asked.

"Where's Maddy?" Rhydian looked around frantically. Shannon was the one to spot her. She was by the coal hatch to the den. She was writhing on the floor and convulsing. Everyone raced over and crowded around her.

"What's happening?" Tom looked over at Dan and Emma.

"She's resisting the transformation!" Emma gently rested a hand on Maddy's shoulder. "Come on, cub. It's over now. Just let it go." Maddy's red eyes glared up at her. Her wolf was refusing to give up control and wouldn't let the blood moon's energy go. It seemed to relish the power and freedom it had felt that night. Rhydian gently moved in next to Emma. He placed one hand on her cheek and rested his forehead on hers.

"Let go, Maddy." Without warning, Maddy's head snapped upwards, her jaws inches from his throat. He didn't even flinch. Maddy's head flopped back and hit the ground hard. As they watched, her eyes slowly returned to their yellow colour. Her fur receded into what was quickly becoming Maddy's soft human skin. Her eyes closed as her shape morphed back into her full human form. Everyone visibly relaxed.

"Well done, Rhydian." Dan clapped Rhydian on the back, a stark contrast from throwing him out just twelve hours ago.

"We're so sorry about what happened, pet." Emma said, wrapping him in a brief hug.

"Wait... _What_ happened?" Jana sat back looking dazed.

"What do you mean?" Shannon couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

"Don't worry, Shan." Dan said as he made his way over to where Jana was looking around and seeming very confused. "One of the few things we know about the blood moon is that it can cause some Wolfbloods to lose all memory of what happened that night. What little we know has been passed down for generations."

"Yeah, I think we're all feeling dizzy." Emma tried to get up from where she was crouched next to Maddy and promptly fell backwards. Dan helped her up again.

"Come on. Everyone inside and I'll make bacon sandwiches." He turned to go inside when Tom started talking.

"I do have one small confession to make: Shannon and I were so exhausted after last night that we already got bacon sandwiches earlier. Sorry, but we were so hungry we were about to go over on the spot."

"Yeah; and why is Kyle in a heap on the floor?" Rhydian asked. "He's bleeding too. Is he..." Rhydian's eyes widened in realisation as he turned pale.

"We'll tell you everything." Shannon told him. "For now, we need to get inside and call an ambulance. Just trust us."

"We do trust you, Shan." Emma nodded seriously. "But we expect the _full_ story and it had _better_ be bulletproof."

"Maddy's not waking up!" Everyone looked over at the sound of Rhydian's frantic voice. They rushed back over to see him trying to shake Maddy awake.

"Pinch her nose shut." Tom suggested. "That's what my mum does when I won't get up in the morning." Rhydian tried it. Maddy just started breathing through her mouth.

"Well, that didn't work." Rhydian rolled his eyes.

"Wow. I've been missing a trick there." Tom couldn't believe it.

"Get her inside and then we'll figure out what to do." Dan helped Emma while Tom and Shannon saw Jana inside. Rhydian picked Maddy up bridal style and carried her, trailing behind the rest of them and taking a moment to temporarily feel relieved that he was by her side again. He carried her into the house and gently made sure he didn't catch her head on the doorframe.

"Get her upstairs, Rhydian." Emma instructed. "We'll work this out once we've had some breakfast. She probably just used too much energy resisting the transformation. She might just need to sleep it off."

"I hope you're right." Rhydian looked as Maddy sleeping like a baby in his arms. "Have you ever seen this before?"

"I've never heard of it happening in my life." Emma shook her head. "Still, we shouldn't panic until we have to. Get her upstairs and we'll watch the situation as it develops." Rhydian nodded and carried Maddy upstairs. He laid her on her bed and gently pulled the covers over her. Try as he might, he couldn't help cursing the blood moon.


	16. Epilogue

Epilogue

4 Hours past Dawn

"Rhydian, you're obviously tired." Jana slumped next to him by Maddy's bed and rested a hand on his shoulder. "You're obviously hungry as well. To top it all off, I bet you'll go into denial."

"No I won't." Rhydian protested as his stomach let out a growl.

"Rhydian, all I'm asking is that you get some breakfast, get your teeth cleaned and then have a nap. Tom and Shannon told us everything. It sounds like last night was brutal on them. I bet you feel like you've gone twelve rounds with a boxer." Rhydian didn't want to admit how right Jana was.

"Okay, I'll get some breakfast and have a sleep." Rhydian gave in, too tired to fight.

"That's all I ask." Jana grinned. "They took that man away. The one you told me about when you came to the wild... He won't be a problem now."

"I just wish it didn't have to get to that point." Rhydian replied.

"Well, at least it wasn't them who put an end to him." Jana shrugged as she glanced at Maddy's still form. "I don't think they'd have lived with themselves."

"But you still don't remember anything?" Rhydian looked over at her.

"It's a blank page." Jana glared at the floor in shame. "I just really hope I didn't hurt anyone that didn't deserve it. Even Shannon doesn't know who got Kyle in the end. If it were me, I'd be okay with that. But I wouldn't want to think I hurt anyone else." Rhydian was about to reply when Shannon walked in.

"Guys, I've just had a text from Harry." She tossed the phone to Rhydian. "Bernie's retired to Spain and Katrina's mother is looking to take over the cafe. Harry wants to put on a bit of a performance there when they reopen. Are you guys going to be there?"

"I probably won't." Jana said. "As soon as I know Maddy's okay and everything else is back in balance, I'm heading back to the wild. The pack needs me as much as they don't want to admit it."

"I'll be there and Maddy probably will too." Rhydian nodded. "We will provided the opening doesn't fall on a dark moon anyway. Mind you: I'd rather go through two dark moons back-to-back than go through _that_ again."

"Yeah, and you still need some food." Jana grabbed Shannon's phone and tossed it back to her. "Shan, can you take him and make sure he gets some food in him? I'll look after Maddy. It's no problem."

"Come on, Rhydian." Shannon motioned for him to follow. His reluctance was clear, but he got up and followed Shannon. As soon as they were downstairs and she could hear bacon frying, Jana picked herself up onto her knees and faced Maddy's bed.

"Friogearde, presence of the moon; let this Wolfblood be safe. Let her find sanctuary, and let the dream that is her captor bring safely back into the arms of loved ones." With that, Jana sat down with her back against Maddy's bed as she was before. Her own tiredness caught up with her as she allowed the sweet darkness to take her.

Blood Moon

End!


End file.
